Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11

[Constance]

The perception that nature is "stuffy" I argue is a byproduct (an artifact) of perception; in order to perceive, the organism has to take a "snap shot" of reality. This gives the organism the sense that nature is finite and discreet, when in reality it is not.

I think all of that is couched in a historical/cultural/linguistic context ... Western philosophy was affected by the revolutions in physics and our perception/cognition is heavily affected by that. What I am suggesting is to see if we can step outside of stuffy assumptions/images and language - can we shift our perception? What is it like to take the mental as fundamental seriously?

Excellent question. Here is Strawson's FN 19:

"19 I discuss the difference between ‘experiential’ and ‘mental’, and the vagueness of ‘mental’, in Strawson 1994 (see e.g. pp. 136–44 and ch. 6). Here I’m trying to avoid the issue as far as possible."

 

[Constance]

Excellent question. Here is Strawson's FN 19:

"19 I discuss the difference between ‘experiential’ and ‘mental’, and the vagueness of ‘mental’, in Strawson 1994 (see e.g. pp. 136–44 and ch. 6). Here I’m trying to avoid the issue as far as possible."

Can we/should we let Strawson get away with avoiding that issue in his "Real Materialism" paper? Has anyone here read the 1994 book he refers to?

Steve, I just sent you a pm saying that I was having a problem inserting new posts in this thread, but it seems to have been resolved now.

 

[Constance]

There are two books available at amazon titled Consciousness and its Place in Nature*, one bearing the subtitle Galen Strawson et al. Both book publications originated in the same volume of The Journal of Consciousness Studies but that's not clarified in either case. Both volumes, like the journal issue, were edited by Anthony Freeman, managing editor of the journal. By now the field of Consciousness Studies needs a dedicated bibliographer to produce a chronological and fully annotated bibliography of all that's been produced in this field over the last 30+ years. If you come across one, please advertise it here.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845400593/?tag=rockoids-20

 

[Constance]

This book also looks like essential reading:

David Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, revised edition

Amazon description:
An updated edition of a comprehensive study of the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things.

"In Panpsychism in the West, the first comprehensive study of the subject, David Skrbina argues for the importance of panpsychism―the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things―in consideration of the nature of consciousness and mind. Panpsychism, with its conception of mind as a general phenomenon of nature, uniquely links being and mind. More than a theory of mind, it is a meta-theory―a statement about theories of mind rather than a theory in itself. Panpsychism can parallel almost every current theory of mind; it simply holds that, no matter how one conceives of mind, such mind applies to all things. After a brief discussion of general issues surrounding philosophy of mind, Skrbina examines the panpsychist views of philosophers from the pre-Socratics to the post-structuralists.

The original edition of Panpsychism in the West helped to reinvigorate a neglected and important aspect of philosophic thinking. This revised edition offers expanded and updated material that reflects the growth of panpsychism as a subdiscipline. It covers the problem of emergence of mind from a non-mental reality and the combination problem in greater detail. It offers expanded coverage of the pre-Socratics and Plato; a new section on Augustine; expanded discussions of Continental panpsychism, scientific arguments, Nietzsche, and Whitehead; and a new section on Russellian monism. With this edition, Panpsychism in the West will be continue to be the standard work on the topic."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845400593/?tag=rockoids-20

 

[Constance]

In lieu of reading the two books linked above, we can also find the essentials of both in papers linked at philpapers.com/consciousness studies. I'll try later to provide a list with links to key papers.


ETA: Here's a list with links to some of the relevant work at philpapers:

Anthony Freeman (ed.), Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? - PhilPapers

 

[Constance]

It seems we have to begin with Chalmer's paper, "Consciousness and its Place in Nature," which appears to have inspired all the thinkers referenced above.

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

From Chalmers bibliographical note: "Published in S. Stich & T. Warfield, eds, Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind (Blackwell, 2003). This paper is an overview of issues concerning the metaphysics of consciousness. Much of the discussion in this paper (especially the first part) recapitulates discussion in Chalmers (1995; 1996; 1997), although it often takes a different form, and sometimes goes beyond the discussion there. I give a more detailed treatment of many of the issues discussed here in the works cited in the bibliography."

Extract:
". . . some nonmaterialists are idealists (in a Berkeleyan sense), holding that the physical world is itself constituted by the conscious states of an observing agent. We might call this view type-I monism. It shares with type-F monism the property that phenomenal states play a role in constituting physical reality, but on the type-I view this happens in a very different way: not by having separate “microscopic” phenomenal states underlying each physical state, but rather by having physical states constituted holistically by a “macroscopic” phenomenal mind. This view seems to be non-naturalistic in a much deeper sense than any of the views above, and in particular seems to suffer from an absence of causal or explanatory closure in nature: once the natural explanation in terms of the external world is removed, highly complex regularities among phenomenal states have to be taken as unexplained in terms of simpler principles. But again, this sort of view should at least be acknowledged. . . ."

 

[Constance]

And I think we also need to look again at Chalmers's paper "Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism"
at http://newdualism.org/papers/D.Chalmers/Chalmers-2013_ALP.pdf

In his Acknowledgments at the end of that paper Chalmers recognizes in particular insights derived from work done by Daniel Stoljar: "I first presented this material at the Munich conference on panpsychism and emergence in June 2011. I am grateful to the audience there and also to audiences at Amherst, Bogazici, Charleston, Fordham, Notre Dame, Santiago, Stanford, and Wesleyan. I owe a special debt to Daniel Stoljar whose related work in “Two Conceptions of the Physical” greatly influenced this article. Thanks also to Torin Alter, Sam Coleman, Brian Garrett, Philip Goff, John Gregg, Bill Meacham, Daniel Stoljar, Galen Strawson, and Keith Turausky for comments on this article."

In his bibliography Chalmers cites two papers by Stoljar, which are probably available at philpapers.

Stoljar, D. 2001a. The conceivability argument and two conceptions of the physical. Philosophical Perspectives 15:393–413.

Stoljar, D. 2001b. Two conceptions of the physical. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62:253–81.

 

[Constance]

Finally, this book authored by Anthony Freeman might be of interest interest:

Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates (Controversies in Science)

Amazon description: "Once the domain of philosophers, the study of consciousness is now an exciting branch of science. Author Anthony Freeman, managing editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, opens Consciousness with a history of mind study, from the ancient Greeks to the present, and provides a multidisciplinary review of cognitive science. Freeman untangles the conflicting theories on the working of the brain, analyzing the techniques developed for its study over the years.

"Seeing" v. "believing," mind/body connections, zombies, and assembly line robots are just the beginning. Even chaos theory and quantum physics are relevant, with opposing approaches inciting disciplinary battles. This illustrated and accessible volume introduces key researchers like Wilder Penfield, who talked with his conscious sister while operating on her brain tumor."

 

[Constance]

I need a break from bibliography.

 

[smcder]

while making the claim that mind and matter are identical, I feel that I have been able to avoid making mind stuffy. If you think I still am, please indicate in which way.

I'm very loosely and informally suggesting that the properties of interaction (causation?), differentiation, and thus structure are properties of both mind and matter.

The perception that nature is "stuffy" I argue is a byproduct (an artifact) of perception; in order to perceive, the organism has to take a "snap shot" of reality. This gives the organism the sense that nature is finite and discreet, when in reality it is not.

Perception is not the process of modeling nature as it is, but modeling nature in a way that is helpful to the organism. Modeling nature as stuffy is helpful.


Splitting hairs, I think this is what Planck was saying. We can't get behind consciousness to study it because we are consciousness.

Splitting more hairs, if we perceive our own consciousness in the technical sense of perceiving (using our sense organs and nervous system) we would perceive a body/brain.

However, we can also introspect or think about our phenomenal experiences which is different than perception.

(Although there are apparently models in which introspection is theorized to be a form of perception.)


Will need to read the 2003 paper.

while making the claim that mind and matter are identical, I feel that I have been able to avoid making mind stuffy. If you think I still am, please indicate in which way.

Throughout - mind is still referred to in terms of a substance or stuff or substrate ...

 

[Soupie]

while making the claim that mind and matter are identical, I feel that I have been able to avoid making mind stuffy. If you think I still am, please indicate in which way.

Throughout - mind is still referred to in terms of a substance or stuff or substrate ...

Ok. Mind, on this view, would be a spatio (structural ?) temporal process, not a substrate.

The INM/matter would be a substrate.

Edit: Many times I use "mind" to refer to consciousness, p consciousness, what-its-like, etc in general, a la the "mind body problem."

 

[Constance]

It is absolutely a speculation. However I have to note Constance that we clarified some time ago that phenomenological philosophy does not and cannot rule out/in strong emergence, nor cannot rule out monism. That is, phen phil is compatible with monism, dualism, and neutral monism.

We did? When and where? I must have been gone that day.

So even if we assume strawson is not familiar with the major texts of phenomenology—which I actually doubt to be the case—they would not impact his real materialist position as you suggest.

Oh they surely would. But I doubt he'll ever invest the time needed to read them.

 

[smcder]

Ok. Mind, on this view, would be a spatio (structural ?) temporal process, not a substrate.

The INM/matter would be a substrate.

Edit: Many times I use "mind" to refer to consciousness, p consciousness, what-its-like, etc in general, a la the "mind body problem."

I mean to take mind as fundamental on its own terms, mental terms - not on physical, particulate ... "stuffy" terms - this is not easy as we are living in a material world:

a la

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

"Stuffy"

Process ... substrate...field, "underlying", getting behind, seeing into, proto-consciousness as little bits of mind (a quark might be a useful way to think of a "unit" of matter...but proto-consciousness might not be a way to think of a unit of mind...(as thinking of mind in units or thinking what is the least bit of mind we might allow in to make this work...
(just how mental does matter have to be, really?) might not be the way to think of mind at all...)

..Instead, we might think of bringing mind in, in a big way.

 

[smcder]

And not thinking

"yes, there is phenomenology but that has no bearing on what's it IS and WHERE it comes from... but really let's get down to it...what's it made of? What can you do with it!? What's the mechanism, the process, the secret?"

And instead exploring if we might already have it-that experiencing it is the full knowledge of it
I don't mean the full knowledge we might have from our limited knowledge but rather the thing in itself as it is-the only kind of knowledge any mind (and every mind) could have not because of any limitation of mind but because there is nothing more to be known, in an analytical, particulate sense.

Then we could know two things:

1. When consciousness shows up and for WHO (and for WHO does consciousness show up? For any who.

2. What consciousness IS (which is just the something that it is like to be you.

 

[smcder]

As to the mind-body problem...well, gee, that is a hard one!

 

[Pharoah]

I mean to take mind as fundamental on its own terms, mental terms - not on physical, particulate ... "stuffy" terms - this is not easy as we are living in a material world:

a la

Is that equ.

With strawson’s Ego inserted? And do I get a prize if I am right?

 

[Pharoah]

Is that equ.

With strawson’s Ego inserted? And do I get a prize if I am right?

Or should that be alter-ego or altar-ego. Never quite sure

 

[Pharoah]

We have no more idea of what “matter” is (it’s intrinsic nature or what it is in itself) than we know what consciousness is. Science might lead you think we know something but “we no nothing” (as Manuel was at pains to emphasise @smcder). If we approach this with the view that matter and consciousness are the same substrate or other panpsychist equivalent, surely what we need to ask is ‘what do we mean by claiming that mind and matter are the same substrate?’ And ‘how does this approach h tell us anything about why we are conscious in the way that we are’

 

[smcder]

We have no more idea of what “matter” is (it’s intrinsic nature or what it is in itself) than we know what consciousness is. Science might lead you think we know something but “we no nothing” (as Manuel was at pains to emphasise @smcder). If we approach this with the view that matter and consciousness are the same substrate or other panpsychist equivalent, surely what we need to ask is ‘what do we mean by claiming that mind and matter are the same substrate?’ And ‘how does this approach h tell us anything about why we are conscious in the way that we are’

I think you mean this for @Soupie.