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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11


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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’

Is having an idea (knowing something) of what matter/consciousness are (intrinsically, in themsleves) different from other kinds of knowing about what something is?

Do we know anything about them at all? What would knowledge of them (in themselves) be and what would we know if we knew it?
 
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Is having an idea (knowing something) of what matter/consciousness are (intrinsically, in themsleves) different from other kinds of knowing about what something is?

Do we know anything about them at all? What would knowledge of them (in themselves) be and what would we know if we knew it?
The intrinsic nature is the non-relational essence of things ... which is not physics coz physics is all about relations. So you could say consciousness is not physical but is the intrinsic dodah. But then you need to bridge it over. Or perhaps you don’t. Ultimately everything came from nothing physical so anything goes. It seems to me that if you want to fight a corner, you need to have some compelling claim
 
The intrinsic nature is the non-relational essence of things ... which is not physics coz physics is all about relations. So you could say consciousness is not physical but is the intrinsic dodah. But then you need to bridge it over. Or perhaps you don’t. Ultimately everything came from nothing physical so anything goes. It seems to me that if you want to fight a corner, you need to have some compelling claim

fight your corner Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

"To defend something that you believe in by arguing."

?
 
“?” I could declare “I’m a dualist.” You quite rightly could respond “so what”. If that was my corner I would need to say something persuasive or compelling. Or perhaps I’m being quirky
 
“?” I could declare “I’m a dualist.” You quite rightly could respond “so what”. If that was my corner I would need to say something persuasive or compelling. Or perhaps I’m being quirky

Sorry, I still don't understand what you are saying.
 
Came across a reference to this book chapter and found a link to it. Might be useful here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/38169751/MeaningAndReality.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1527466333&Signature=nHvtEABi0P+BUEJq5fFY+INoryw=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Meaning_and_reality_a_cross-traditional.pdf

from: Bo Mou & R. Tieszen Eds. 2012. Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy, Leiden (Brill), pp. 199-220.

CHAPTER TEN
Lajos L. Bron, MEANING AND REALITY: A CROSS-TRADITIONAL ENCOUNTER

I couldn't get the link to work but found the PDF on PhilPapers.
 
The intrinsic nature is the non-relational essence of things ... which is not physics coz physics is all about relations. So you could say consciousness is not physical but is the intrinsic dodah. But then you need to bridge it over. Or perhaps you don’t. Ultimately everything came from nothing physical so anything goes. It seems to me that if you want to fight a corner, you need to have some compelling claim
"The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing [experiencing - Soupie] the effects of the stone upon himself. ~Russel

I think defining intrinsic and extrinsic properties in this way is incoherent. I think it is false that science "reveals" the extrinsic/relational nature of matter.

(I sent the following to Seager.)

I am interested in the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic properties and their relation to the concepts of mind-independent and mind-dependent properties.

From page one of your paper:

"Strawson characterizes his version of panpsychism, or ‘real physicalism’, as the view that ‘everything that concretely exists is intrinsically experience-involving’. He approvingly quotes several of Russell’s remarks, the general upshot of which is that‘we know nothing about the intrinsic quality of physical events except when these are mental events that we directly experience’which sentiment is echoed by various pronouncements of Eddington, such as ‘science has nothing to say as to the intrinsic nature of the atom’. In whatever way the argument is going to proceed, it evidently depends upon some conception of the intrinsic nature of things. What is this supposed to be?"

The concern I have is with the claim that we/science know nothing about the intrinsic nature of matter. My thinking is that a more accurate statement is "we/science can only know the intrinsic quality of physical events indirectly except when these are mental events that we directly experience." Intrinsic event A just is scientific, extrinsic event "atom." Science does't reveal the extrinsic properties of nature; science reveals the intrinsic properties of nature in objective, extrinsic, relational, perceptual terms.

Is it accurate to say that we/science indirectly perceive the intrinsic nature of matter to be relational properties? On this view, intrinsic and extrinsic properties are not distinct, they are identical. However, they appear distinct due to the inferential, reflexive nature of perception/science. The act of nature reflecting on itself.
 
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@Soupie. From what I remember from reading Russell you don’t understand what he means by intrinsic. Also, your “we/science” sentences don’t work for me. You can’t read them as “science...”
I would be interested to hear with clarity what you say science does reveal and to hear a statement from you that clarifies what intrinsic and extrinsic mean for you.
What is “concretely existing” as opposed to not “concretely existing”. This coherence is scrambling my mind.
 
Is it accurate to say that we/science indirectly perceive the intrinsic nature of matter to be relational properties? On this view, intrinsic and extrinsic properties are not distinct, they are identical. However, they appear distinct due to the inferential, reflexive nature of perception/science. The act of nature reflecting on itself.

This is an interesting paragraph. But it seems to me that you are attempting to collapse the difference you actually recognize to exist between the unknowable 'thing in itself' and the ways in which we can come closer to knowing it, which involve the middle ground of experience between -- and combining -- our indirect, objectivizing, attempts to reach in abstract thought the intrinsic core of what-is in the naturally evolved and evolving world as a whole and the ways in which we directly touch and otherwise sense, physically and aesthetically, the local reality of the world's being as it is for us in our lived intercourse with it. We cannot divide ourselves from the world as and where it becomes palpable for us at the edges of our fingertips and on the surfaces of our skin, seeps into our bodies and minds in the colors, visual and aural, the sensations/the sensibility, that exist by virtue of our own naturally given affordances for awareness and consciousness of where we are, where we have our lives. Why would we want to ignore the intimacy of our being with the being of what-is in the world we live in, that which exists in our mutual presencing in this locally recognizable world since it is this that provides the physical support for and inspires the emotions, desires, and ideas out of which we make our own lives meaningful?
 
@Soupie. From what I remember from reading Russell you don’t understand what he means by intrinsic. Also, your “we/science” sentences don’t work for me. You can’t read them as “science...”
I would be interested to hear with clarity what you say science does reveal and to hear a statement from you that clarifies what intrinsic and extrinsic mean for you.
What is “concretely existing” as opposed to not “concretely existing”. This coherence is scrambling my mind.
What do you think Russell means by intrinsic?

"You can't read them as science?" I'm not sure what you mean by that. What I mean by "we/science" is this:

Perception is inferential. Scientific measurement is inferential.

I am arguaibg against the way in which the terms intrinsic/extrinsic as they are commonly used to refer to the nature of matter.

Rather than say matter has distinct intrinsic and extrinsic qualities, I am suggesting that nature has qualities in-itself (intrinsic) that we infer using perception/measurement (extrinsic).
 
I am argu[in]g against the way in which the terms intrinsic/extrinsic as they are commonly used to refer to the nature of matter.

Rather than say matter has distinct intrinsic and extrinsic qualities, I am suggesting that nature has qualities in-itself (intrinsic) that we infer using perception/measurement (extrinsic).

We more than 'infer' qualities of the world we live in, which is a local manifestation out of the whole of Being. I can't see the satisfaction to be gained in reducing perception to inference. In lived perception we see and feel the actuality of the local world pressing in upon us, undeniable in its presence, evoking what we experience and think, and revealing our own being, our presence within its inexhaustible horizons and alluring complexity.
 
Guide to Reality: Russellian Monism and Dispositional/Categorical Properties

if anyone needs more terminology to throw around, grab a few handfuls of this:

dispositional and categorical ...

I’m gratified that the position in Philosophy of Mind known as Russellian Monism (also known as Russellian theory of mind and probably the best developed account of neutral monism) has gotten more attention in recent years. However, the terminology typically used to describe the position today is different from Bertrand Russell’s, as presented in his 1927 work, The Analysis of Matter. This post discusses some of the issues involved, and briefly looks at how some stances in contemporary debates would fit with the original account.
 
And what we say of it comes bodied forth by our feeling for the world that comes bounding into our sensual presence, our reflecting minds, drawing us into being as experience. Here is a song, with an English translation of the lyrics, composed and sung by a living bard from Brazil who has known and shares all this:

Açaí - Djavan

"Loneliness by the morning
Dust taking its place
Wind blast
Haunting sound
Heart...
...bleeding all the sane word

The passion pure will
Mystical mermaid's clan
Sandcastle
Wrath of shark, illusion
The sun shines by itself

Açai, guardian
Zum of beetle a magnet
White is face's color of the morning

Açai, guardian
Zum of beetle a magnet
White is face's color of the morning"
 
What do you think Russell means by intrinsic?

"You can't read them as science?" I'm not sure what you mean by that. What I mean by "we/science" is this:

Perception is inferential. Scientific measurement is inferential.

I am arguaibg against the way in which the terms intrinsic/extrinsic as they are commonly used to refer to the nature of matter.

Rather than say matter has distinct intrinsic and extrinsic qualities, I am suggesting that nature has qualities in-itself (intrinsic) that we infer using perception/measurement (extrinsic).
“Rather than say matter has distinct intrinsic and extrinsic qualities, I am suggesting that nature has qualities in-itself (intrinsic) that we infer using perception/measurement (extrinsic).”
That approximates to my way of thinking it too. But I would say that perception/measurement does not inform us of nature’s Intrinsic ‘properties’. At all.
 
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