Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[smcder]

Good ... it is all in FUN ... just playing off as many of the ideas as I can ... not to be taken too seriously (or at all) by anyone ...

I am trying to remember the term @Soupie used back in Part 2, I think when we discussed mental causation and causal overdetermination ...

transduce up and down or something like that ... searched and can't find it, but I will

By the way "What is Philosophy" is helping me understand Phenomenology and philosophy qua philosophy.

(I love the word "qua" it's a schwa fronted, pre-fixed with a Q for query ... qua, qua - the sound an intellectual fish might make about the water in which it swims)

when we meet one another on the road then our watch-word is to be

Qua Vadis?

 

[smcder]

So that, to this:
"What follows in this essay is an account of Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of
empiricism and intellectualism, which is to say his rejection of the concept of
sensations or qualia as primitive building blocks of perceptual experience on the
one hand, and his equally emphatic denial that perception is constituted by or
reducible to thought or judgment on the other. What emerges from that negative
assessment of the two dialectical poles framing traditional debates about
perception and the mind is a positive and original conception of perception as our
most basic bodily mode of access to the world, prior to the kinds of reflection and
abstraction that motivate the idea of discrete passive qualitative states of
consciousness and spontaneous acts of cognition. What Merleau-Ponty calls the
“phenomenal field” is neither a representation nor a locus of representations, but
a dimension of our bodily embeddedness in a perceptually coherent environment,
a primitive aspect of our openness onto the world."

I can say:

Si! Si! Yes - Ja! Qua!

I understand it! ;-)

 

[Soupie]

I have no idea what green is ...

But it's not the mind, right? You seem to hold the position that the mind and phenomenal green are distinct things.

And green is not electromagnetic waves with the following characteristics: 495–570 nm, 526–606 THz, 2.17–2.50 eV

So that gives us three distinct things: mind, green, energy

The one doing all the experiencing, it seems to me, could be simple. It could be (simply) you. Wonderful you!

Why do we assume our intuitions of who we are, that we even are - are wrong?

My intuition is that I am my experiences. We can lose the redundant "my." I am experiences.

You say, "The one doing all the experiencing...could be you."

But if I am not my experiences, what am I? Am I my emotions? Or am I just experiencing them too? Am I my thoughts, or am Injust thinking them too? Am I my memories, or am I just remembering them?

If "I" am not my experiences, emotions, thoughts, or memories... what am I?

This is @Pharoah noumen (sp?) hard problem, right?

Physical reality, phenomenal reality, and the experiencer? What is phenomenal reality and what is the experiencer, right?

I don't think "the mind is green" is profound. I'm sure the concept is well noted. I would expect you, constance, or pharoah to be able to point me to the philosopher who's already been down this road, however.

Re the objective and subjective overlapping. On my view, there is clearly overlap between the two; its clear to me that our minds are embedded our bodies/environments. However, its also clear to me that not all of what-is has a what-its-like; and that what-its-like can transcend the body/environment. (And by clear, I mean intuitive/experience, and of course it may be—and likely is—wrong.)

 

[smcder]

To, with, at or for @Soupie, in regards to the mind is green (qua green) we can then say:

Occasionally we might see an afterimage or hear a ringing in our ears, but typically we see objects and hear noises made by things and events. This is in part just to say that perceptual experience is intentional, that it is of something, whereas impressions, sensations, and sense data are supposed to be the non intentional stuff from which the mind somehow extracts or constructs an experience of something.

But the of in “sensation of pain” is not the of in “sensation of red,” for the latter is intentional while the former is not. In the latter case, that is,

we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it,

whereas a sensation of pain just is the pain.

And even pains are not just feelings that we associate with parts of our bodies; rather, my pain is my leg, my hand, my head hurting. Perception is essentially interwoven with the world we perceive, and each feature of the perceptual field is interwoven with others:

 

[Soupie]

Good ... it is all in FUN ... just playing off as many of the ideas as I can ... not to be taken too seriously (or at all) by anyone ...

I am trying to remember the term @Soupie used back in Part 2, I think when we discussed mental causation and causal overdetermination ...

transduce up and down or something like that ... searched and can't find it, but I will

Yes, it was transduce: as in lightwaves are transduced into optic nerve pulses, and optic nerve pulses are transduced into neuronal spikes, and neuronal spikes are transduced into phenomenal green, which is apparently projected onto a movie screen somewheres in the brain.

 

[smcder]

But it's not the mind, right? You seem to hold the position that the mind and phenomenal green are distinct things.

And green is not electromagnetic waves with the following characteristics: 495–570 nm, 526–606 THz, 2.17–2.50 eV

So that gives us three distinct things: mind, green, energy


My intuition is that I am my experiences. We can lose the redundant "my." I am experiences.

You say, "The one doing all the experiencing...could be you."

But if I am not my experiences, what am I? Am I my emotions? Or am I just experiencing them too? Am I my thoughts, or am Injust thinking them too? Am I my memories, or am I just remembering them?

If "I" am not my experiences, emotions, thoughts, or memories... what am I?

This is @Pharoah noumen (sp?) hard problem, right?

Physical reality, phenomenal reality, and the experiencer? What is phenomenal reality and what is the experiencer, right?

I don't think "the mind is green" is profound. I'm sure the concept is well noted. I would expect you, constance, or pharoah to be able to point me to the philosopher who's already been down this road, however.

Re the objective and subjective overlapping. On my view, there is clearly overlap between the two; its clear to me that our minds are embedded our bodies/environments. However, its also clear to me that not all of what-is has a what-its-like; and that what-its-like can transcend the body/environment. (And by clear, I mean intuitive/experience, and of course it may be—and likely is—wrong.)

I think Constance just did some pointing ... for me, to point, I have to understand "the mind is green" ...

Did this: (quoted above)

See also the distinction between pain and the color green in the excerpt above:
we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it,

whereas a sensation of pain just is the pain.

help?

--------------------

If "I" am not my experiences, emotions, thoughts, or memories... what am I?

This is @@Pharoah noumen (sp?) hard problem, right?

Remember, the noumenal problem is the hard problem ... winnow out the experiences, emotions, thoughts and memories, Chalmers argues these are all "easy problems" ... and what is left is "what it is like to be" Soupie ... they would not leave out the my ...

 

[smcder]

Yes, it was transduce: as in lightwaves are transduced into optic nerve pulses, and optic nerve pulses are transduced into neuronal spikes, and neuronal spikes are transduced into phenomenal green, which is apparently projected onto a movie screen somewheres in the brain.

You forgot the little Daniel Dennett sitting in front of the movie screen throwing popcorn ....

 

[smcder]

Quoth the Salmon of Knowledge:
The concept of sensation in philosophy and psychology thus finds

virtually no support in our actual experience,

however firmly planted the word may be in ordinary discourse. Merleau-Ponty also offers a phenomenological diagnosis of our tendency to recur to talk of sensations, as if they really did occur in the normal course of perception. When the concept arises, he suggests, “it is because instead of attending to the experience of perception, we overlook it in favor of the object perceived” (PP 10/4/4). We are naturally focused on or “at grips with” (en prise sur) the environment, so that when we turn our attention to perception itself, we tend to project onto it the qualities of the objects we perceive:

Let go, then, of green and carpe sentio my friend, carpe sentio qua sentio!

 

[Soupie]

But the of in “sensation of pain” is not the of in “sensation of red,” for the latter is intentional while the former is not. In the latter case, that is,

we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it,

whereas a sensation of pain just is the pain.

I'm not sure how perception and sensation are being distinguished. (Can you have a perception of a sensation or a sensation of a perception?)

But, no, I don't distinguish between a perception/sensation of red or pain. They are both about something, something objective.

The sensation/perception of red is about em waves, the sensation/perception of pain is about insult to the body.

I will certainly read MP, but it will need to be through a 3rd party. However, I will be reading the Body in Mind book presently.

 

[Soupie]

@smcder

Thats not how I understand the hp. It is not, why does soupie have a soupie pov?

It is, how/why does soupie have a pov?

Alternatively, the question might be: how can we objectively describe soupies pov?

That too, methinks, is different from chalmers hp.

I think chalmers hp is: how can we objectively describe how soupie can have a pov.

@Pharoah has articulated this i believe and the opinion that he has answered this. I think he is right about the former, wrong about the latter.

 

[Constance]

I don't think "the mind is green" is profound. I'm sure the concept is well noted. I would expect you, constance, or pharoah to be able to point me to the philosopher who's already been down this road, however.

Merleau-Ponty explores the nature of color and light as experienced in the Phenomenology of Perception.

 

[smcder]

@smcder

Thats not how I understand the hp. It is not, why does soupie have a soupie pov?

It is, how/why does soupie have a pov?

Alternatively, the question might be: how can we objectively describe soupies pov?

That too, methinks, is different from chalmers hp.

I think chalmers hp is: how can we objectively describe how soupie can have a pov.

@Pharoah has articulated this i believe and the opinion that he has answered this. I think he is right about the former, wrong about the latter.

**SIGH**

 

[Constance]

Re the objective and subjective overlapping. On my view, there is clearly overlap between the two

They are interfused in experience.

I'm sorry to be so pithy in these posts but I've got to go in a few minutes. We can talk more about all this; hope we will.

 

[Constance]

I think chalmers hp is: how can we objectively describe how soupie can have a pov.

I think Chalmers hp is that he recognizes that we can't describe consciousness and all that is involved in and incorporated with it 'objectively'.

 

[Constance]

I will certainly read MP, but it will need to be through a 3rd party. However, I will be reading the Body in Mind book presently.

What is the book you mention?

 

[smcder]

@smcder

Thats not how I understand the hp. It is not, why does soupie have a soupie pov?

It is, how/why does soupie have a pov?

Alternatively, the question might be: how can we objectively describe soupies pov?

That too, methinks, is different from chalmers hp.

I think chalmers hp is: how can we objectively describe how soupie can have a pov.

@Pharoah has articulated this i believe and the opinion that he has answered this. I think he is right about the former, wrong about the latter.

You laid it all out so clearly recently when I was out of town ... what happened??

 

[smcder]

@smcder

Thats not how I understand the hp. It is not, why does soupie have a soupie pov?

It is, how/why does soupie have a pov?

Alternatively, the question might be: how can we objectively describe soupies pov?

That too, methinks, is different from chalmers hp.

I think chalmers hp is: how can we objectively describe how soupie can have a pov.

@Pharoah has articulated this i believe and the opinion that he has answered this. I think he is right about the former, wrong about the latter.

Chalmers

"The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience."

 

[smcder]

Chalmers

"If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state. Sometimes terms such as "phenomenal consciousness" and "qualia" are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of "conscious experience" or simply "experience".

**Another useful way to avoid confusion (used by e.g. Newell 1990, Chalmers 1996) is to reserve the term "consciousness" for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term "awareness" for the more straightforward phenomena described earlier. If such a convention were widely adopted, communication would be much easier; as things stand, those who talk about "consciousness" are frequently talking past each other.**

The ambiguity of the term "consciousness" is often exploited by both philosophers and scientists writing on the subject. It is common to see a paper on consciousness begin with an invocation of the mystery of consciousness, noting the strange intangibility and ineffability of subjectivity, and worrying that so far we have no theory of the phenomenon. Here, the topic is clearly the hard problem - the problem of experience. In the second half of the paper, the tone becomes more optimistic, and the author's own theory of consciousness is outlined. Upon examination, this theory turns out to be a theory of one of the more straightforward phenomena - of reportability, of introspective access, or whatever. At the close, the author declares that consciousness has turned out to be tractable after all, but the reader is left feeling like the victim of a bait-and-switch. The hard problem remains untouched."

 

[smcder]

"There is no analogous further question in the explanation of genes, or of life, or of learning. If someone says "I can see that you have explained how DNA stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next, but you have not explained how it is a gene", then they are making a conceptual mistake. All it means to be a gene is to be an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function. But if someone says "I can see that you have explained how information is discriminated, integrated, and reported, but you have not explained how it is experienced", they are not making a conceptual mistake. This is a nontrivial further question.

This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere.

This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role. But for any role it might play, there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function. Perhaps it will even turn out that in the course of explaining a function, we will be led to the key insight that allows an explanation of experience. If this happens, though, the discovery will be an extraexplanatory reward. There is no cognitive function such that we can say in advance that explanation of that function will automatically explain experience."

 

[smcder]

I'm not sure how perception and sensation are being distinguished. (Can you have a perception of a sensation or a sensation of a perception?)

But, no, I don't distinguish between a perception/sensation of red or pain. They are both about something, something objective.

The sensation/perception of red is about em waves, the sensation/perception of pain is about insult to the body.

I will certainly read MP, but it will need to be through a 3rd party. However, I will be reading the Body in Mind book presently.

Did the Chalmers quotes help here?

What is it like when you see red? For you that is the same as seeing red? The mind is just red? Is feeling pain, the experience, the same as seeing red except a different object is in place? Is the mind pain? Insult to the body vs em? Is the something it is like to feel pain or to be Soupie in pain the same as the something it like to see red? Or is there only red and pain?

Do you dream in color?