Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
"It looks like the phrase "intrinsic nature of matter" is off limits too now, haha. Russell's distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties isn't the distinction I'm focused on.
The distinction I mean to pick out is the distinction between the properties of nature in-itself and the properties of nature given in human perception."
Ok... can you talk about those distinctions please?
Nature in-itself: [what can you say about nature in itself]
Properties of nature: [are 'the properties of nature' different from 'nature in-itself'? And expand on your answer]
Given in human perception: ['Given' is a risky word... the revelation of human perception concern what?... nature in-itself or nature's properties]

 

[Soupie]

>> "The distinction I mean to pick out is the distinction between the properties of nature in-itself and the properties of nature given in human perception."

Ok... can you talk about those distinctions please?

Nature in-itself: [what can you say about nature in itself]

Properties of nature: [are 'the properties of nature' different from 'nature in-itself'? And expand on your answer]

Given in human perception: ['Given' is a risky word... the revelation of human perception concern what?... nature in-itself or nature's properties]

Pharoah, thank you for the sincere, valid questions. I will attempt to answer them as best I can. I'm still working through the answers myself as should be evident.

But first, it seems that you are making a distinction between nature in-itself and nature's properties.

I'm perhaps foolishly trying to speak of nature holistically when I refer to its properties. Importantly I think of nature as a unified whole (you could perhaps picture a 3-dimensional field or a 4-dimensional field if you consider time). However that's just a device to help think about nature. I'm not insisting that nature really or only has 3 (or 4) dimensions.

Contrast this with the idea that nature is a field of distinct and discreet particles (akin to billiard balls).

So when I ask what is nature in itself, I'm asking what are the properties of this 4 dimensional field*. I.e. The properties just are its nature. There is no distinction between properties and nature.

*I understand that nature in itself may be nothing like a 4D field, haha but we have to start somewhere. (In fact space and time may be prime candidates for perceptual properties rather than properties of nature in itself.)

So pharoah, before I start, can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous.

 

[Pharoah]

Pharoah, thank you for the sincere, valid questions. I will attempt to answer them as best I can. I'm still working through the answers myself as should be evident.

But first, it seems that you are making a distinction between nature in-itself and nature's properties.

I'm perhaps foolishly trying to speak of nature holistically when I refer to its properties. Importantly I think of nature as a unified whole (you could perhaps picture a 3-dimensional field or a 4-dimensional field if you consider time). However that's just a device to help think about nature. I'm not insisting that nature really or only has 3 (or 4) dimensions.

Contrast this with the idea that nature is a field of distinct and discreet particles (akin to billiard balls).

So when I ask what is nature in itself, I'm asking what are the properties of this 4 dimensional field*. I.e. The properties just are its nature. There is no distinction between properties and nature.

*I understand that nature in itself may be nothing like a 4D field, haha but we have to start somewhere. (In fact space and time may be prime candidates for perceptual properties rather than properties of nature in itself.)

So pharoah, before I start, can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous.

@Soupie Firstly: I am a great believer in following one's intuitions as you seem to be doing. Part of that process requires a commitment, I feel, to define words and phrases in one's own terms. You have to go down your own rabbit hole, to some degree and become your own expert. Those definitions most likely will have to be modified over time. I basically want you to stake a claim to these terms and map out your novel concepts with them because they sound unique.
Second: "can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous."
properties: A physicist might talk of an atom's properties as being of a certain mass and charge; a chemist might speak of its reactive properties; and a human individual might talk of some number of those atoms as having the phenomenoa property of a metalic taste. In all cases we are talking about 'properties' as physical relationships, in a physicalist sense. I would argue (others would disagree) that all these properties are emergent. So for example, phenomenal properties require life: without living organisms phenomenal properties do not exist. Equally, iron atoms and their properties did not exist until they were created by fusion in stars... physicists try to find the most fundamental properties of existence... good luck to them.
nature in itself: NIT is outside of this physicalism. I say this because, as soon as you use physics, you are measuring with physics using something that is physical. That then becomes, by definition, a property in virtue of its physical relation and therefore part of the properties of physical existence. In so doing, this denies the very thing that it is 'in itself'—by definition. So physics, as we currently know it, knows nothing and will always know nothing of nature 'in itself'.
But if everything that is physical (that is, everything that has a physical property) emerged from nothing, then that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself, which surely is something.
And where subjectivity or mind fits into this is another nut. Again, I think of subjectivity as an emergent property, but that leaves me with my particular problem of WIAMANSE.

 

[smcder]

Gubbinal
by Wallace Stevens

That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.

The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.

That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.

That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.

The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.

 

[Soupie]

Second: "can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous."

properties: A physicist might talk of an atom's properties as being of a certain mass and charge; a chemist might speak of its reactive properties; and a human individual might talk of some number of those atoms as having the phenomenoa property of a metalic taste. In all cases we are talking about 'properties' as physical relationships, in a physicalist sense. I would argue (others would disagree) that all these properties are emergent. So for example, phenomenal properties require life: without living organisms phenomenal properties do not exist. Equally, iron atoms and their properties did not exist until they were created by fusion in stars... physicists try to find the most fundamental properties of existence... good luck to them.

nature in itself: NIT is outside of this physicalism. I say this because, as soon as you use physics, you are measuring with physics using something that is physical. That then becomes, by definition, a property in virtue of its physical relation and therefore part of the properties of physical existence. In so doing, this denies the very thing that it is 'in itself'—by definition. So physics, as we currently know it, knows nothing and will always know nothing of nature 'in itself'.

Tentatively we have:

Nature (nature in-itself)

Nature interacting with itself (physical properties)

Nature perceiving itself (phenomenal/perceptual properties)

 

[smcder]

@Soupie Firstly: I am a great believer in following one's intuitions as you seem to be doing. Part of that process requires a commitment, I feel, to define words and phrases in one's own terms. You have to go down your own rabbit hole, to some degree and become your own expert. Those definitions most likely will have to be modified over time. I basically want you to stake a claim to these terms and map out your novel concepts with them because they sound unique.
Second: "can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous."
properties: A physicist might talk of an atom's properties as being of a certain mass and charge; a chemist might speak of its reactive properties; and a human individual might talk of some number of those atoms as having the phenomenoa property of a metalic taste. In all cases we are talking about 'properties' as physical relationships, in a physicalist sense. I would argue (others would disagree) that all these properties are emergent. So for example, phenomenal properties require life: without living organisms phenomenal properties do not exist. Equally, iron atoms and their properties did not exist until they were created by fusion in stars... physicists try to find the most fundamental properties of existence... good luck to them.
nature in itself: NIT is outside of this physicalism. I say this because, as soon as you use physics, you are measuring with physics using something that is physical. That then becomes, by definition, a property in virtue of its physical relation and therefore part of the properties of physical existence. In so doing, this denies the very thing that it is 'in itself'—by definition. So physics, as we currently know it, knows nothing and will always know nothing of nature 'in itself'.
But if everything that is physical (that is, everything that has a physical property) emerged from nothing, then that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself, which surely is something.
And where subjectivity or mind fits into this is another nut. Again, I think of subjectivity as an emergent property, but that leaves me with my particular problem of WIAMANSE.

But if everything that is physical (that is, everything that has a physical property) emerged from nothing, then that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself, which surely is something.

Everything physical (that has a physical property...) emerged from nothing but that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself ...

1. so nature in itself does not emerge from nature in itself? or does not have physical properties?
2. do things other than physical things emerge from the nothing that is nature in itself?
3. how do we conceive of "nothing" that may be nature in itself and therefore something?

In terms of emergence - Chalmers has talked about consciousness as the sole case of strong emergence but your formulation here (even in the weaker form of everything that has a physical property comes from the relative nothingness of nature in itself) seems to be another instance of strong emergence.

Finally, how does this relate to the idea of a singularity (Big Bang)?

 

[Pharoah]

Tentatively we have:

Nature (nature in-itself)

Nature interacting with itself (physical properties)

Nature perceiving itself (phenomenal/perceptual properties)

Apart from NIT they are all physical imv though
I would also throw into the mix of the physical:
The propertiy of self-reflection (although calling it a property seems like a different term of reference is preferable)

 

[smcder]

Tentatively we have:

Nature (nature in-itself)

Nature interacting with itself (physical properties)

Nature perceiving itself (phenomenal/perceptual properties)

What is difficult here for the reader is that we actually have novel terms defined in existing terms that aren't necessarily well defined:

Nature you define as "nature in itself" the idea of in-itself at least brings up Ding an sich which is fabulously controversial ... but many would not equate Nature (is the capitalization important?) with Natur an sich - nature interacting with itself as physical properties and nature perceiving itself as phenomenal/perceptual (properties or as phenomenal experience and perception or is perception = perceptual propeties?) Some would say that all of nature does not perceive all of itself ... or might try to relate this to how they might perceive themselves.

This is along the lines of problems with "subject"/"experience" - an experience requires a subject and subjects require experience and Strawson

even argues for their strong modal equivalence... but we still pull them apart in order to talk about the subject or the experience (or its content) variously ... because you can't always say what you need to say with subobjexperient.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie Firstly: I am a great believer in following one's intuitions as you seem to be doing. Part of that process requires a commitment, I feel, to define words and phrases in one's own terms. You have to go down your own rabbit hole, to some degree and become your own expert. Those definitions most likely will have to be modified over time. I basically want you to stake a claim to these terms and map out your novel concepts with them because they sound unique.
Second: "can you speak to the difference between nature in itself and nature's properties? As I say, I would consider these terms synonymous."
properties: A physicist might talk of an atom's properties as being of a certain mass and charge; a chemist might speak of its reactive properties; and a human individual might talk of some number of those atoms as having the phenomenoa property of a metalic taste. In all cases we are talking about 'properties' as physical relationships, in a physicalist sense. I would argue (others would disagree) that all these properties are emergent. So for example, phenomenal properties require life: without living organisms phenomenal properties do not exist. Equally, iron atoms and their properties did not exist until they were created by fusion in stars... physicists try to find the most fundamental properties of existence... good luck to them.
nature in itself: NIT is outside of this physicalism. I say this because, as soon as you use physics, you are measuring with physics using something that is physical. That then becomes, by definition, a property in virtue of its physical relation and therefore part of the properties of physical existence. In so doing, this denies the very thing that it is 'in itself'—by definition. So physics, as we currently know it, knows nothing and will always know nothing of nature 'in itself'.
But if everything that is physical (that is, everything that has a physical property) emerged from nothing, then that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself, which surely is something.
And where subjectivity or mind fits into this is another nut. Again, I think of subjectivity as an emergent property, but that leaves me with my particular problem of WIAMANSE.

As far as WAIMANSE ... do we ever have the uncanny feeling WIASEANM? (I can easily access the uncanniness of WAIMANSE but I don't seem to be able to feel that I am someone else ...) Why am I someone else and not me? Why the lack of symmetry? If you weren't you, you would be in the same position - someone who can ask WAIMANSE ... but if you weren't you ... you'd still be the someone asking WAIMANSE and thnking of themselves as me, in other words you would still be "you" ... it seems to me more of a funny cognitive/linguistic phenomena (we might ask if this occurs cross-culturally and historically or if it depends on certain aspects of how we think of ourselves as "you"s?).

As I understand it, you would be a physicalist if it were not for WAIMANSE - on what non-physical does WAIMANSE depend? I've read your paper on the noumenal (which you've said is out of date) and we've discussed it - but I'm not sure I've asked the question in this way before.

 

[Pharoah]

Apart from NIT they are all physical imv though
I would also throw into the mix of the physical:
The propertiy of self-reflection (although calling it a property seems like a different term of reference is preferable)

But soupie I’m about as far from Strawson as you can get so I don’t think I’m going to be particularly helpful to you at this point on this

 

[Constance]

From above, yesterday, I can't tell whether this last sentence is Steve's or @Soupie's. But my question is the same no matter which.

that is, you think that we infer both physics and the subject-matter of our own experience?

When/where did we pick up this usage of the verb 'infer' to refer to the ways in which we acquire -- gradually acquire -- knowledge concerning parts of the world and what we call 'the world' and the differing and various ways in which we do so, by virtue of our own awareness and developing consciousness? If I recall correctly, it was @Soupie who began using this term, so I hope he will reply and clarify his reasons for doing so.

 

[smcder]

From above, yesterday, I can't tell whether this last sentence is Steve's or @Soupie's. But my question is the same no matter which.



When/where did we pick up this usage of the verb 'infer' to refer to the ways in which we acquire -- gradually acquire -- knowledge concerning parts of the world and what we call 'the world' and the differing and various ways in which we do so, by virtue of our own awareness and developing consciousness? If I recall correctly, it was @Soupie who began using this term, so I hope he will reply and clarify his reasons for doing so.

Yes, that is @Soupie's term.

 

[Pharoah]

But if everything that is physical (that is, everything that has a physical property) emerged from nothing, then that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself, which surely is something.

Everything physical (that has a physical property...) emerged from nothing but that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself ...

1. so nature in itself does not emerge from nature in itself? or does not have physical properties?
2. do things other than physical things emerge from the nothing that is nature in itself?
3. how do we conceive of "nothing" that may be nature in itself and therefore something?

In terms of emergence - Chalmers has talked about consciousness as the sole case of strong emergence but your formulation here (even in the weaker form of everything that has a physical property comes from the relative nothingness of nature in itself) seems to be another instance of strong emergence.

Finally, how does this relate to the idea of a singularity (Big Bang)?

1. How should I know?
2. maybe... v possibly... i'm thinking antimatter and other such things.
3. no idea.
4. it relates to the idea of a singularity completely.
but tbh, I'm more interested in what will emerge in the future. It is as if the universe is a seed...

 

[Constance]

Apart from NIT they are all physical imv though
I would also throw into the mix of the physical:
The propertiy of self-reflection (although calling it a property seems like a different term of reference is preferable)

Very interesting issue. In phenomenological philosophy, the capacity for self-reflection emerges out of the preconscious sense of being-in a situation within an actual extended 'world' {a sensing already incipient in autopoiesis}, thus a sense first of self-other awareness. This sense becomes more complex with the evolution of animals that move about in their environments, sensing that the changing spatial and temporal relations between themselves and that which stands outside them depends on their own movement -- with two result: the sense of the depth of the environing world and the self-identification of the animal, its referring experience to itself as situated in a world that exceeds it on every side. The capacity for reflection on this fluid relatedness of 'self' and 'world' is a gradual accomplishment of living beings over long periods of evolution and depends on increasingly complex lived experiences available to animals with the developmental support of neural nets within which experiences in the animal's world are sorted out and remembered.

So it seems that anything we call a 'property' of 'what-is' is emergent in both the grounding of protoconscious and conscious experience beginning in and with the emergence of life itself and also, later, in that which we, and likely some other species of life, eventually make "our gradual possession" in thought. What we develop in thinking concerns questions about both what we are and what the nature of the world is. And we do not yet have answers to those questions.

Note: the phrase "our gradual possession" is from a Stevens poem.

 

[Pharoah]

What is difficult here for the reader is that we actually have novel terms defined in existing terms that aren't necessarily well defined:

Nature you define as "nature in itself" the idea of in-itself at least brings up Ding an sich which is fabulously controversial ... but many would not equate Nature (is the capitalization important?) with Natur an sich - nature interacting with itself as physical properties and nature perceiving itself as phenomenal/perceptual (properties or as phenomenal experience and perception or is perception = perceptual propeties?) Some would say that all of nature does not perceive all of itself ... or might try to relate this to how they might perceive themselves.

This is along the lines of problems with "subject"/"experience" - an experience requires a subject and subjects require experience and Strawson

even argues for their strong modal equivalence... but we still pull them apart in order to talk about the subject or the experience (or its content) variously ... because you can't always say what you need to say with subobjexperient.

yes... I kind of prefer 'intrinsic' to 'in itself'; perhaps @Soupie thinks of them as different (?). Also I agree with the questioning of 'nature interacting with itself' and 'nature perceiving itself' but I just ran with Soupie's terminology so as not to get bogged down. But perhaps this is more problematic in the long run

 

[Constance]

Can we know anything of a 'nothing' antecedent to the origin of the universe we now think we live in? With the experiencing of primordial organisms and the evolution of animal and human life, the living always sense -- and thus 'know' -- of something, of that which they sense impinges upon them and yet provides sustenance and directions for continuing to exist.

 

[Pharoah]

As far as WAIMANSE ... do we ever have the uncanny feeling WIASEANM? (I can easily access the uncanniness of WAIMANSE but I don't seem to be able to feel that I am someone else ...) Why am I someone else and not me? Why the lack of symmetry? If you weren't you, you would be in the same position - someone who can ask WAIMANSE ... but if you weren't you ... you'd still be the someone asking WAIMANSE and thnking of themselves as me, in other words you would still be "you" ... it seems to me more of a funny cognitive/linguistic phenomena (we might ask if this occurs cross-culturally and historically or if it depends on certain aspects of how we think of ourselves as "you"s?).

As I understand it, you would be a physicalist if it were not for WAIMANSE - on what non-physical does WAIMANSE depend? I've read your paper on the noumenal (which you've said is out of date) and we've discussed it - but I'm not sure I've asked the question in this way before.

"As I understand it, you would be a physicalist if it were not for WAIMANSE" I would.
If in asking WAIMANSE I reason that I would be asking exactly the same question if I was someone else (as your argument or comment goes above), can I, or even must I conclude that solipsism holds: I am in effect everyone in the universe in all time?

 

[Constance]

A lush and lavishly musical break from words -- a daily necessity.

 

[smcder]

"As I understand it, you would be a physicalist if it were not for WAIMANSE" I would.
If in asking WAIMANSE I reason that I would be asking exactly the same question if I was someone else (as your argument or comment goes above), can I, or even must I conclude that solipsism holds: I am in effect everyone in the universe in all time?

I don't see where that follows.

To say "if I was someone else" is only a manner of speaking - I can't be me and someone else - if I was someone else I would be someone else and would be that me, not this me, but then I could still ask the question - but as that someone else not as (me as someone else) or as everyone else. In other words, we are all in the same position to ask the question: WAIMANSE.

 

[smcder]

1. How should I know?
2. maybe... v possibly... i'm thinking antimatter and other such things.
3. no idea.
4. it relates to the idea of a singularity completely.
but tbh, I'm more interested in what will emerge in the future. It is as if the universe is a seed...

I guess these are largely rhetorical questions...

1. so nature in itself does not emerge from nature in itself? or does not have physical properties?
How should I know?
How should you know that: "Everything physical (that has a physical property...) emerged from nothing but that nothing might be deemed to be nature in itself ..."?

2. antimatter is physical, I thought?

3. how do we conceive of "nothing" that may be nature in itself and therefore something?
no idea
Can it properly be said that one holds an inconceivable idea?

4. Finally, how does this relate to the idea of a singularity (Big Bang)?
it relates to the idea of a singularity completely.
Again, I thought a Singularity (the Big Bang) is a physical(ist) concept or idea?