Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11

[smcder]

Doh! I do recognize it's a real problem, and Inthink the approach that Strawson takes, which my approach closely mirrors, largely revolves the HP. Of course the approach that Strawson and my version are not proven. Sheesh.

1. Doh! I do recognize it's a real problem, and Inthink the approach that Strawson takes, which my approach closely mirrors, largely revolves the HP.

2. How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Do you see how this might be confusing?

 

[Soupie]

That's panpsychism.

What would you say is the difference between Strawson's real materialism and panpsychism?

 

[Soupie]

1. Doh! I do recognize it's a real problem, and Inthink the approach that Strawson takes, which my approach closely mirrors, largely revolves the HP.

2. How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Do you see how this might be confusing?

Sure. How can I clarify?

How are the mind and body related? They are constituted of the same thing/stuff.

How this thing/stuff evolved into organisms/subjects of experience is not understood.

 

[Soupie]

Less confusing would be to say that experiences just are physical processes, but not all physical processes are experiential.

Yep, that's good.

And I would say, all physical processes are phenomenal processes, but not all phenomenal processes are experiential.

 

[Soupie]

o he is saying that consciousness is material is not contradicting by what we already know of physics (of course he doesn't say we could learn something about matter that would make it problematic) and he is not saying we know how consciousness is material. To say

And this is where my approach is "stronger" than Strawson. He seems to suggest that consciousness emerges (?) from or within (?) matter we just don't know how.

I am saying it just is matter.

Speaking of michal Allen, I think he argued something similar a long while back. I don't think of the phenomenal nature of <MATTER> to be something extra. It is matter.

 

[Constance]

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Is it not enough that we have the wits to ask this question? And to recognize that we are still early
on the path, the way, to ever answering it?

 

[smcder]

Hm, how to express it...

We know that Nature has a phenomenal nature because we are subjects of experience constituted of Nature.

However, the mainstream presumption of our day is that the phenomenal nature of Nature emerges with and only with subjects of experience.

I argue that the phenomenal nature of Nature is fundamental along with what we recognize to be it's physical nature. We recognize the phenomenal character of human experience to be things such as greenness, sweetness, etc. however these are very rich and complex phenomenal characteristics of the human mind. And they are experiential.

The phenomenal nature of <MATTER> outside of organisms that are subjects of experience is, I argue, nothing like the phenomenal character we recognize in experience.

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

1. "I would say all physical processes are perceptible by immediate experience, but not all are experiential."

2. We recognize (the phenomenal character of human experience) to be things such as greenness, sweetness, etc. however these are very rich and complex phenomenal characteristics of the human mind. And they are experiential. (the phenomenal character of human experience is experiential? Redundant but you also seem to be drawing a distinction between "experience" and the "phenomenal" here

The phenomenal nature of (<MATTER> outside of (organisms that are subjects of experience is),) I argue, nothing like the phenomenal character we recognize in experience.

So there is a phenomenal nature of matter outside of organisms (that are subject of experience) and it is nothing like the phenomenal character we recognize as (human experience) - now this appears to be an argument for something along the spectrum of experience (you've tried proto-phenomena or experience in the past) which isn't human experience - but is something like that, so that makes 1) above read something like:

1. "I would say all physical processes are perceptible by immediate experience, but not all are experiential in the human sense, but there is a phenomenal nature of matter that might be proto-experiential" it doesn't on this analysis sound like you want to say are not experiential in this broad sense but only in a richer, human sense. The problem is its hard to make sense of proto-experience ... and this:

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Is difficult because of the combination problem if we take a particulate view of experience - protoexperience + protoexperience + ... = experience or we can posit some kind of force or fluid or field, some elementary part of matter that can differentiate and evolve into organisms/subjects of experience - but that, really, is the whole problem.

 

[smcder]

And this is where my approach is "stronger" than Strawson. He seems to suggest that consciousness emerges (?) from or within (?) matter we just don't know how.

I am saying it just is matter.

Speaking of michal Allen, I think he argued something similar a long while back. I don't think of the phenomenal nature of <MATTER> to be something extra. It is matter.

Strawson wrote a paper for the NY Times (now behind a paywall) Consciousness is Not a Mytery, It's Matter. I'm trying to find where he says that "consciousness emerges from or within matter we just don't know how" ... or that it is matter. remember he also wrote Physicalism Entails Panpsychism.

It's fine to say it just is matter - but since not all matter is conscious/experiential, then what is different in the matter that is experiential/conscious and is not extra, does not emerge from within or from matter?

 

[smcder]

Yep, that's good.

And I would say, all physical processes are phenomenal processes, but not all phenomenal processes are experiential.

What is an example of a phenomenal process that is not experiential?

 

[smcder]

What would you say is the difference between Strawson's real materialism and panpsychism?

Peter Sjöstedt-H

 

[smcder]

And this is where my approach is "stronger" than Strawson. He seems to suggest that consciousness emerges (?) from or within (?) matter we just don't know how.

I am saying it just is matter.

Speaking of michal Allen, I think he argued something similar a long while back. I don't think of the phenomenal nature of <MATTER> to be something extra. It is matter.

Here is Strawson on emergence:

3 Emergence

Is this a possible position? Can one hold RP and NE together? I don’t think so, but one defence goes like this:

Experiential phenomena are emergent phenomena. Consciousness properties, experience properties, are emergent properties of wholly and utterly non-conscious, non-experiential phenomena. Physical stuff in itself, in its basic nature, is indeed a wholly non-conscious, non-experiential phenomenon. Nevertheless when parts of it combine in certain ways, experiential phenomena ‘emerge’. Ultimates in themselves are wholly non-conscious, non-experiential phenomena. Nevertheless, when they combine in certain ways, experiential phenomena ‘emerge’.

Does this conception of emergence make sense? I think that it is very, very hard to understand what it is supposed to involve. I think that it is incoherent, in fact, and that this general way of talking of emergence has acquired an air of plausibility (or at least possibility) for some simply because it has been appealed to many times in the face of a seeming mystery.[22] In order to discuss it I am going to take it that any position that combines RP with NE must invoke some notion of emergence, whether or not it chooses to use the word.

And from the SEP on panpsychism:

Thus, the crucial feature of intelligible emergence, according to Strawson, is that the relationship between the product of emergence and its producer can be adequately characterized using a single set of conceptually homogeneous concepts. But it’s very hard to see how any set of conceptually homogeneous concepts could capture both the experiential (i.e., consciousness-involving) and the non-experiential (non-conscious-involving), and hence hard to see how the thesis that consciousness emerges from non-consciousness could be rendered intelligible. Strawson argues that it is only by supposing that human and animal consciousness emerges from more basic forms of consciousness, that we have hope of avoiding the emergence of animal consciousness being a brute and inexplicable miracle.

 

[Soupie]

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Is difficult because of the combination problem if we take a particulate view of experience - protoexperience + protoexperience + ... = experience or we can posit some kind of force or fluid or field, some elementary part of matter that can differentiate and evolve into organisms/subjects of experience - but that, really, is the whole problem.

It's fine to say it just is matter - but since not all matter is conscious/experiential, then what is different in the matter that is experiential/conscious and is not extra, does not emerge from within or from matter?

What is an example of a phenomenal process that is not experiential?

Strawson argues that it is only by supposing that human and animal consciousness emerges from more basic forms of consciousness, that we have hope of avoiding the emergence of animal consciousness being a brute and inexplicable miracle.

Will respond to these asap. Thanks!

 

[smcder]

And if there's any doubt:

"More recently, Galen Strawson (2006a) has defended a similar argument from the untenability of radical emergence. Whereas Nagel’s aim is merely to establish the disjunction of panpsychism and panprotopsychism, the conclusion of Strawson’s argument is very definitely the truth of panpsychism. Strawson begins by arguing that radical emergence is upon reflection unintelligible:"

 

[smcder]

Will respond to these asap. Thanks!

I'd rather you take your time. ;-)

 

[Pharoah]

My approach is perhaps a bit "stronger" than Strawson's. In response to the question above, I say physical processes just are experience.

Isn't that what Strawson says too?

Realistic materialists—realistic anybodys—must grant that experiential phenomena are real, concrete phenomena, for nothing in this life is more certain.

They must therefore hold that they are physical phenomena, although physics contains only predicates for non-experiential being, and so cannot characterize the qualitative character of experiential being in any way. It may at first sound odd to use the word ‘concrete’ to characterize the qualitative character of experiences of colour, gusts of depression, thoughts about diophantine equations, and so on, but it isn’t odd, because ‘concrete’ simply means ‘not abstract’.

For most purposes one may take ‘concrete’ to be coextensive with ‘possessed of spatiotemporal existence’, although thiswill be directly question-begging in some contexts.

@Soupie. Can I just point out that yours is not so much an argument as a stance: a stance that offers no explanation—which, incidentally, for GS is the beauty of it. I am kind of waiting for the argument...

 

[Pharoah]

Starting from the premise “consciousness is matter” where do we go next?

 

[Soupie]

>> How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

Is difficult because of the combination problem if we take a particulate view of experience - protoexperience + protoexperience + ... = experience or we can posit some kind of force or fluid or field, some elementary part of matter that can differentiate and evolve into organisms/subjects of experience - but that, really, is the whole problem.

I don't take a particulate view of experience. I don't take a particulate view of <MATTER> either.

I think the combination/boundary problem of mind needs to be addressed, of course, but I think we are in the same position as we are with the MBP. We just don't know enough about <MATTER> to saying anything about how/why the mind seems unified and bounded.

And it is an open question in physics whether nature is fundamentally discreet or continuous, the answer of which I think would impact the combination problem.

It's fine to say it just is matter - but since not all matter is conscious/experiential, then what is different in the matter that is experiential/conscious and is not extra, does not emerge from within or from matter?

The immediately above is related to the immediately below:

Strawson argues that it is only by supposing that human and animal consciousness emerges from more basic forms of consciousness, that we have hope of avoiding the emergence of animal consciousness being a brute and inexplicable miracle.

In my way of thinking, the move from non-experiential (physical) processes to experiential (physical) processes is not an ontological leap, a strong emergence.

There must be (I argue) some type of non-experiential 'consciousness.' (I hate to use that term because it rightly conjures the notion of a full human mind, which is not what I intend.)

Strawson says "basic forms of consciousness."

Here is another way I thought of expressing it:

A subject of experience is a certain kind of conscious process that is constituted of non-experiential albeit conscious processes.

One of the (many) problems with the statement is that everything we know about consciousness comes to us via subjective experience. The mainstream tends to equate consciousness with subjective experience. There aren't mainstream terms to speak of non-experiential consciousness. (Though there might be in meditation traditions.)

What is an example of a phenomenal process that is not experiential?

Because by definition it is non experiential we can't known it 'directly' and due to the perspectival relation between mind and matter, we can't perceive a non-experiential phenomenal process. (Technically we could perceive it, but it would look like matter to us.)

So my stance hinges on the idea that non-experiential albeit "conscious" processes ("basic forms of consciousness") exist apart from experiential conscious processes.

The concept I am trying to convey is that consciousness is not an additional or extra ingredient of <MATTER>. It just is <MATTER>, not to be confused with 'matter.'

What is new, in the weak sense, is the emergence of subjects of experience.

Subjects of experience are to consciousness as organisms are to matter.

 

[Soupie]

Starting from the premise “consciousness is matter” where do we go next?

Physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience; psychology, phenomenology, anthropology etc.

That is to say, business as usual.

 

[Soupie]

Starting from the premise “consciousness is matter” where do we go next?

The question subtly shifts from "how do living organisms give rise to consciousness" to the question of "how is consciousness shaped by the processes of life into subjective experience?"

Which is only subtly different than "how is <MATTER> shaped by the processes of life into subjective experience?"

 

[smcder]

"Perhaps the most promising conception of protophenomenal properties is given by the view Herbert Feigl (1960) called “panqualityism”, crediting it to a conversation with Stephen C. Pepper. Versions of the view itself were held by William James (1904), Ernst Mach (1886), Bertrand Russell (1921) and Peter Unger (1999). More recently the view has been prominently defended by Sam Coleman (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016). According to panqualityism the protophenomenal properties are unexperienced qualities. Our conscious experience is filled with experienced qualities, e.g., those phenomenal qualities involved in seeing colour or feeling pain. Panqualityists believe that such qualities are only contingently experienced, and that in basic matter they exist unexperienced.

Panqualityists typically give some kind of reductionist account of how such unexperienced qualities come to be experienced, such as a functionalist account according to which for a quality to be experienced is for it to play the right causal role in the cognitive capacities of the organism. Thus, panqualityism can be seen as a kind of middle way between panpsychism and physicalism.[11] Whereas the physicalist thinks that we can give an entirely reductive account of consciousness, and the panpsychist thinks that consciousness is fundamental, the panqualityist thinks that that the qualitative aspect of consciousness is fundamental, whilst holding a reductive view of subjectivity, i.e., the fact that those qualities are experienced."