Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Soupie]

Don't they use that defintion because it is what they are testing?

The definition I posted of the Openness factor was taken from The Big Five entry on Wiki.

 

[smcder]

My response can best be summed up by the Ruse gentleman quoted at wiki:


From wiki: Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims are unknown or unknowable.

In my mind, this relates to what Peterson was saying about the framing problem.

We are beings with finite knowledge and perspective. But, we do have some knowledge and perspective. So what are we to do? We use what knowledge and perspective we have to actively create a worldview. I've shared my (ever changing) worldview in regards to metaphysics.

Do I think for a second that my worldview is absolutely correct, i.e., the best model of what-is? Not for a second.

If I am presented with logic, evidence, or self-experience I (like to think that I) would augment my worldview. As per Peterson, I would sacrifice a sacred belief and replace it with another. (Which itself may or may not "model" ultimate reality.)

My response can best be summed up by the Ruse gentleman quoted at wiki:

Ok, so you didn't actually read Plantinga's argument? (and not just the Wikipedia summation) Also, note that Ruse's comments were made in 2004 and Plantinga reformulated the argument in 2008.

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims are unknown or unknowable.

We are beings with finite knowledge and perspective. But, we do have some knowledge and perspective. So what are we to do? We use what knowledge and perspective we have to actively create a worldview. I've shared my (ever changing) worldview in regards to metaphysics.

I don't disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but the above definition doesn't match (in my mind) the earlier definition you applied to yourself:

Well, I would classify myself as a card carrying agnostic: I am open to anything and don't know anything. However, I clearly have my own intuitions and beliefs about what-is and how best we can know what-is.

... hence my confusion.

all I am saying is you appear to have some strong beliefs and to be committed to them - which is great, but just being willing to augment a belief in the face of new evidence isn't the same as being Agnostic in either of the above definitions, in the Wiki definition, Agnostic extends to the possibility that certain claims are unknowable.

When you were young
And your heart was an open book
You used to say, "Live and let live"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever-changing world-view in which Soupie's livin'
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die

 

[smcder]

The definition I posted of the Openness factor was taken from The Big Five entry on Wiki.

right - im just saying/asking - the definition (you dont like) is the one that you are actually tested on in that link you sent?

 

[Soupie]

Unknown or unknowable. How have my accounts of "not knowing" changed?

Apparently it would make you feel better if I said: I'm a non-determinist, materialist, monist property dualist who favors a simulation theory of consciousness, but I could be completely wrong on all accounts, including (and especially!) those philosophical labels! - that's how strongly I feel about those positions. Better?

Look, I'm not a philosopher, physicist, nor a neuroscientist. No, I didn't read either full version of Plantinga's argument, just the wiki page. I'm not claiming that humans can know the ultimate truth about reality. I read the first version of his argument closely and I frankly thought it was silly. Apparently I don't fully understand it, but I don't have the time - or interest - in pursuing it further at the moment. I appreciate the link, and may encounter the argument again one day.

 

[Soupie]

right - im just saying/asking - the definition (you dont like) is the one that you are actually tested on in that link you sent?

No. The questions were fine, it was the definition I didn't like. The questions weren't about new experiences. They were the ones about being creative and using big words (among others).

The test was normed of course.

In other words: All big five tests will be normed to, er, actually test the big five. So the test is fine.

All I'm saying is I don't like the definition/explanation of openness that they chose to use.

Haha I think it's time to take a breather!

 

[smcder]

This is one of my favorite ideas from Dreyfus:

"In a recent interview you said that there is in the universe a power to grab people and motivate them to do great things which doesn't come out of their inner [being] and doesn't come out of their culture. We don't know what it is but people call it a calling. So, I want you to reflect a moment. You led us to coming to philosophy -- what do you see in your background that led to that calling? Or was it the problem that interested you?"

 

[smcder]

Taylor Carman, a leading philosophical scholar, hones in on the key distinctions among the major phenomenological philosophers (Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty) in this highly readable interview:

Mature: heidegger and merleau-ponty » 3:AM Magazine

making more and more sense ...

@Michael Allen ... reminds me of what you were saying above-

"The fatal flaw in the Husserlian program, according to Heidegger, was not just that Husserl happened to get things wrong by misdescribing the phenomena, but that he simply ignored the question of the being of the entity (ourselves) that we know at the outset is the subject of phenomenological description. We know it’s us, that is, embodied persons in natural and social worlds, that we’re really describing, but Husserl wants to put the person, the body, and the world aside as mere distractions from what he feels entitled to take for granted as self-evident, namely the transparently given contents of consciousness. Heidegger doesn’t say there is no such thing as the mind or consciousness, only that it makes no sense to begin a phenomenology at that level of abstraction, with all the theoretical presuppositions lurking behind it.

...

3:AM: Like Husserl, Searle and Dennett ignore the background context of hermeneutic conditions that render their own conceptions of intentionality intelligible to begin with. Dennett speaks of the “intentional stance” as a quasi-scientific, third-person point of view we take up in explaining and predicting behavior. That’s fine, but how does that notion even arise in our experience of ourselves and each other? What is its basis? How are we able to understand it? Dennett just helps himself to the notion, which is to say, he ignores the understanding we must already have of ourselves and of each other that underlies and underwrites the entire theoretical vocabulary of belief and desire. But that theoretical vocabulary doesn’t just grow on trees. Dennett’s view is in this sense scientistic and uncritical, in the Kantian sense.

... The concept therefore does nothing to answer the critical or transcendental question, What makes concepts like consciousness and mind and intentionality intelligible in the first place? How is it possible for such notions even to make sense to us as they do? That’s the deep question Heidegger was asking, and neither Husserlian phenomenology nor most contemporary philosophy of mind for that matter even addresses let alone answers it."

 

[smcder]

@Constance . . . ahhhh, now I get it!

"TC: Although Descartes has been the “go to” philosophical bad guy for the past century, much contemporary philosophy of mind is in many ways still held captive by a Cartesian picture of the human being. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is a radical repudiation of that picture, so his work remains outside the orbit of mainstream analytical philosophy. He has nothing to add, for example, to tedious debates about the metaphysics of consciousness.

Which makes sense, since it’s only by isolating that (ill-defined) phenomenon in an absurdly abstract way that you can generate pseudo-problems about how to fit it back into your conception of objective nature, in particular the equally abstract – though entirely legitimate – picture of the world you find in advanced physics. I consider Merleau-Ponty’s silence on that question a sign of his philosophical maturity."

 

[Constance]

Taylor Carman really puts his fingers right on it, doesn't he? The phenomenological turn in philosophy was necessary to break beyond the idealist abstractions in which Husserl was still caught (and the materialist reductions in which scientism is still largely trapped).

 

[smcder]

Taylor Carman really puts his fingers right on it, doesn't he? The phenomenological turn in philosophy was necessary to break beyond the idealist abstractions in which Husserl was still caught (and the materialist reductions in which scientist is still largely trapped).

is there an account of a phenomenological informed science? what it would look like? we've touched on this maybe a little, but I'm wondering is someone working on this - Arthur Zajonc, maybe? I just looked him up and made the connection to Varela . . .

 

[Constance]

I'm trying to remember where I recently read a well-articulated argument that both first-person and third-person perspectives will have to be engaged in scientific efforts to investigate consciousness. Radin and others in paranormal psychology and psychical research have argued this for years. I hope I can remember and link that more recent source.

I haven't followed the links Tyger provided earlier to Zajonc yet. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch's The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Neuroscience and Consciousness is a major work toward the grounds for a phenomenologically based scientific approach to consciousness, as is Thompson's subsequent Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Man. Dreyfus has written on neurophenomenology, and Varela and Thompson have a chapter entitled "Neural Synchrony and the Unity of Mind: A Neurophenomenological Perspective" in a book entitled The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation, edited. by A. Cleeremans. Also, the Alva Noe paper "A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness" that I linked recently makes progress in this direction. The international activity in the field of interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies has encouraged these early efforts.

 

[Constance]

@Constance . . . ahhhh, now I get it!

"TC: Although Descartes has been the “go to” philosophical bad guy for the past century, much contemporary philosophy of mind is in many ways still held captive by a Cartesian picture of the human being. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is a radical repudiation of that picture, so his work remains outside the orbit of mainstream analytical philosophy. He has nothing to add, for example, to tedious debates about the metaphysics of consciousness.

Which makes sense, since it’s only by isolating that (ill-defined) phenomenon in an absurdly abstract way that you can generate pseudo-problems about how to fit it back into your conception of objective nature, in particular the equally abstract – though entirely legitimate – picture of the world you find in advanced physics. I consider Merleau-Ponty’s silence on that question a sign of his philosophical maturity."

Carman added followiong those two paragraphs that:

"There are two other areas of contemporary thought, however, in which [MP's] ideas do find strong parallels. The first is the broadly speaking deflationary or antitheoretical strain of thought in pragmatism and the later Wittgenstein. There is a very powerful, but I think underappreciated and too little discussed diagnostic or therapeutic line of argument in Phenomenology of Perception. Much of what he does there aims at finding the source of various distorted images of perception and theories of intentionality and retracing the steps philosophers and psychologists have taken from the phenomena, away from the phenomena, misled by dubious metaphors, into caricatures and abstractions.

Another area is, of course, contemporary cognitive neuroscience. In addition to his negative or critical dismantling of traditional theories of perception, a number of Merleau-Ponty’s positive phenomenological descriptions are prescient anticipations of recent discoveries. For example, his description of our immediate perceptual attunement to others has found empirical confirmation in the discovery of (so-called) “mirror neurons,” and his discussion of “motor intentionality” bears comparison with Melvyn Goodale and David Milner’s account of the way in which at least part of the visual system is essentially integrated into action rather than representation."

There are certainly grounds to hope for an integration of phenomenology with cognitive neuroscience in my opinion.

 

[boomerang]

Couple thoughts:

I want to go back to @boomerang 's metaphor of the iceberg. I loved it.

I whipped up a little graphic:

I lifted the analogy from a genuine expert on Jungian psychology: Jungian Psychoanalysis | John Betts, Victoria Jungian Analyst, Victoria, BC, Canada

 

[smcder]

Unknown or unknowable. How have my accounts of "not knowing" changed?

Apparently it would make you feel better if I said: I'm a non-determinist, materialist, monist property dualist who favors a simulation theory of consciousness, but I could be completely wrong on all accounts, including (and especially!) those philosophical labels! - that's how strongly I feel about those positions. Better?

Look, I'm not a philosopher, physicist, nor a neuroscientist. No, I didn't read either full version of Plantinga's argument, just the wiki page. I'm not claiming that humans can know the ultimate truth about reality. I read the first version of his argument closely and I frankly thought it was silly. Apparently I don't fully understand it, but I don't have the time - or interest - in pursuing it further at the moment. I appreciate the link, and may encounter the argument again one day.

I appreciate the link, and may encounter the argument again one day.

You very likely will - if you hang around here. ;-) I've noticed tremendous resistance to this argument (and it's not original to Plantinga, but he developed it) when I've posted it before, dismissal with less attention than you've given it - I suspect because he is a Christian philosopher? or people think I'm trying to convert them?? by simply invoking Planting - now that is silly! Plantinga has a tremendous intellect and it takes a good deal of effort to engage his thinking on its own terms.

the other reason I like it is because an inverted form gets used by the other side - saying. "well, you've been fooled you know - by evolution (Plantiga believes in evolution by the way) - but as Ruse admits a "tremendous respect" for Plantinga, one has an uneasy feeling of trying to call someone as or smarter than you a dupe. plantinga is just pointing out that the argument applies to all

now Plantinga is saying, of course, that we can know something because of reason and we can know more because of God - this falls into the silly category for many people I realize but probably for emotional reasons rather than an inability to see the beauty of the idea.

 

[smcder]

Unknown or unknowable. How have my accounts of "not knowing" changed?

Apparently it would make you feel better if I said: I'm a non-determinist, materialist, monist property dualist who favors a simulation theory of consciousness, but I could be completely wrong on all accounts, including (and especially!) those philosophical labels! - that's how strongly I feel about those positions. Better?

Look, I'm not a philosopher, physicist, nor a neuroscientist. No, I didn't read either full version of Plantinga's argument, just the wiki page. I'm not claiming that humans can know the ultimate truth about reality. I read the first version of his argument closely and I frankly thought it was silly. Apparently I don't fully understand it, but I don't have the time - or interest - in pursuing it further at the moment. I appreciate the link, and may encounter the argument again one day.

that is better - clearer to me as a reader. it seems your ideas are changing and that's great as a process, sometimes it moves so quickly I can't follow, so be patient with me!

 

[Soupie]

@smcder Plantinga is saying, of course, that we can know something because of reason and we can know more because of God...

"Plantinga argued that neural structures that constitute beliefs have content, in the following way: "At a certain level of complexity, these neural structures start to display content. Perhaps this starts gradually and early on (possibly C. elegans [a small worm with a nervous system composed of only a few neurons] displays just the merest glimmer of consciousness and the merest glimmer of content), or perhaps later and more abruptly; that doesn't matter. What does matter is that at a certain level of complexity of neural structures, content appears. This is true whether content properties are reducible to NP properties or supervene on them."[37] So given materialism some neural structures at a given level of complexity acquire content and become beliefs. The question then is according to Plantinga: "what is the likelihood, given materialism, that the content that thus arises is in fact true?"[37]

I suppose I just don't understand his argument here: "What is the likelihood that the content that arises is true?" I can't answer that, but the important thing is not that the content is "true" but that it's adaptive. That is, if our beliefs keep us alive and reproducing, then they are "good." I also think the scientific method can be helpful in discerning what's true, but you dismissed this earlier, which indicates to me that I don't understand the argument. Perhaps I don't know what he means by "true?"

....[T]he purpose of his argument is to show that the denial of the existence of a creative deity is problematic

That's fine, but I'm not denying the existence of a creative deity. Yes, my worldview puts constraints on the "nature" of such a creative deity. Yes, I've said that I'm a "material monist:" That is, I believe all of what-is is, ultimately, made of the same stuff, whatever that stuff may be. Keep in mind, this "ultimate material" may not be physical, in fact I don't think it is.

If someone insisted that this creative deity was made of different stuff than we are, that's fine. I don't believe that though. And I don't think that's a necessary belief. I would also ask: If it were made of different stuff, irreducible to our stuff, how do the two different stuffs interact?

I would also disagree if one were to say this creative deity were irreducible; that is, if they were to argue that this complex entity with "moving parts" just was. That is a conceptual idea that I would reject. (But I am fully aware my rejection could be wrong, haha.) Again, I would argue that such a belief would be unnecessary.

@smcder it seems your ideas are changing

I'm sure they have. However, in the context of this discussion of consciousness/metaphysics, I'm not sure in which way they have?

I've felt that what-is is ultimately made of one primal stuff, and that mind emerges from the organism's interaction with environment. For what it's worth, I still feel that the conceptual pieces of Langan's CTMU best align with my intuitions about what-is.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie I was just thinking of Langland this morning - specifically how plantinga has a better beard. it's really almost Biblical which is sure what he is going for.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Soupie]

@smcder I don't think Agnostic is the right label for you.

@Constance Unless you are indeed 'agnostic' about every approach to consciousness/mind/brain discussed in this thread, which at various times you do seem to be, Soupie. But that doesn't seem to be the case either...

I did pull this bit from the definition of agnostic at Dictionary.com: asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge. That does describe how I feel about and approach human knowledge.

However, I think you(s) are right, agnostic is not an appropriate label for my views on metaphysical topics. Apologies for any confusion or frustration. (Maybe weak agnostic... No? Okay. Heh. Sorry.)

 

[smcder]

I suppose I just don't understand his argument here: "What is the likelihood that the content that arises is true?" I can't answer that, but the important thing is not that the content is "true" but that it's adaptive. That is, if our beliefs keep us alive and reproducing, then they are "good." I also think the scientific method can be helpful in discerning what's true, but you dismissed this earlier, which indicates to me that I don't understand the argument. Perhaps I don't know what he means by "true?"

That's fine, but I'm not denying the existence of a creative deity. Yes, my worldview puts constraints on the "nature" of such a creative deity. Yes, I've said that I'm a "material monist:" That is, I believe all of what-is is, ultimately, made of the same stuff, whatever that stuff may be. Keep in mind, this "ultimate material" may not be physical, in fact I don't think it is.

If someone insisted that this creative deity was made of different stuff than we are, that's fine. I don't believe that though. And I don't think that's a necessary belief. I would also ask: If it were made of different stuff, irreducible to our stuff, how do the two different stuffs interact?

I would also disagree if one were to say this creative deity were irreducible; that is, if they were to argue that this complex entity with "moving parts" just was. That is a conceptual idea that I would reject. (But I am fully aware my rejection could be wrong, haha.) Again, I would argue that such a belief would be unnecessary.

I'm sure they have. However, in the context of this discussion of consciousness/metaphysics, I'm not sure in which way they have?

I've felt that what-is is ultimately made of one primal stuff, and that mind emerges from the organism's interaction with environment. For what it's worth, I still feel that the conceptual pieces of Langan's CTMU best align with my intuitions about what-is.

can't answer that, but the important thing is not that the content is "true" but that it's adaptive. That is, if our beliefs keep us alive and reproducing, then they are "good." I also think the scientific method can be helpful in discerning what's true, but you dismissed this earlier, which indicates to me that I don't understand the argument

plantinga says if naturalism is true there is no reason to trust the content of our beliefs because our brains are a product of evolution - because as you say the content is adaptive not necessarily true - but if this the case then naturalism isn't true - he calls this a "defeater" he is pointing out that natural- ism says religious beliefs evolved and are adaptive but not true - plantinga says naturalism is a belief (also Scientism) so they evolved too. as a Christian reason is rooted in God for Plantinga so we CAN trust our reason and so Plantinga is a fan of science. He also believes in (directed) Evolution

...

for me it's a reminder to think carefully about using arguments that we can't trust our senses and reason

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[smcder]

Materialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

is this definition consistent with how you define materialist?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk