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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11

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Found this interesting:

"Now imagine some particular substance, say, me. Suppose I go from being pale to being tan. Now it is still I who exist both before and after the sun has had its characteristic effect on me. This illustrates an important feature of substances: they can successively have contrary accidents and yet retain their numerical identity. This sort of change is known, appropriately enough, as accidental change. In an accidental change, a substance persists through the change, having first one accident and then another. But clearly not all changes are accidental changes. There was once a time when I did not exist, and then I came into existence. We can't analyze this change as an accidental change, since there doesn't seem to be any substance that persists through the change. Instead, a substance is precisely what comes into being; this is not an accidental but a substantial change. And yet there must be something that persists even through substantial change, since otherwise we wouldn't have change at all; substances would come to exist from nothing and disappear into nothing. Scotus follows Aristotle in identifying matter as what persists through substantial change and substantial form as what makes a given parcel of matter the definite, unique, individual substance that it is. (There are also accidental forms, which are a substance's accidental qualities.)

Thus far Scotus is simply repeating Aristotelian orthodoxy, and none of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors would have found any of this at all strange. But as Scotus elaborates his views on form and matter, he espouses three important theses that mark him off from some other philosophers of his day: he holds that there exists matter that has no form whatsoever, that not all created substances are composites of form and matter, and that one and the same substance can have more than one substantial form. Let us examine each of these theses in turn.

First, Scotus argues that there is matter that is entirely devoid of form, or what is known as “prime matter” (Quaestiones in Metaphysicam 7, q. 5; Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un.). Scholars debate now (just as they debated in Scotus's day) whether Aristotle himself really believed that there is prime matter or merely introduced it as a theoretical substratum for substantial change, believing instead that in actual fact matter always has at least some minimal form (the form of the elements being the most minimal of all). Aquinas denied both that Aristotle intended to posit it and that it could exist on its own. For something totally devoid of form would be utterly featureless; it would be pure potentiality, but not actually anything. Scotus, by contrast, argues that prime matter not only can but does exist as such: “it is one and the same stuff that underlies every substantial change” (King [2002]).

Second, Scotus denies “universal hylomorphism,” the view that all created substances are composites of form and matter (Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un., n. 55). Universal hylomorphism (from the Greek hyle, meaning ‘matter’, and morphe, meaning ‘form’) had been the predominant view among Franciscans before Scotus. Saint Bonaventure, for example, had argued that even angels could not be altogether immaterial; they must be compounds of form and “spiritual matter.” For matter is potentiality and form is actuality, so if the angels were altogether immaterial, they would be pure actuality without any admixture of potentiality. But only God is pure actuality. But as we have already seen in his affirmation of the existence of prime matter, Scotus simply denies the unqualified equation of matter with potentiality and form with actuality. Prime matter, though entirely without form, is actual; and a purely immaterial being is not automatically bereft of potentiality."

"The problem of universals may be thought of as the question of what, if anything, is the metaphysical basis of our using the same predicate for more than one distinct individual. Socrates is human and Plato is human. Does this mean that there must be some one universal reality—humanity—that is somehow repeatable, in which Socrates and Plato both share? Or is there nothing metaphysically common to them at all? Those who think there is some actual universal existing outside the mind are called realists; those who deny extra-mental universals are called nominalists. Scotus was a realist about universals, and like all realists he had to give an account of what exactly those universals are: what their status is, what sort of existence they have outside the mind. So, in the case of Socrates and Plato, the question is “What sort of item is this humanity that both Socrates and Plato exemplify?” A related question that realists have to face is the problem of individuation. Given that there is some extra-mental reality common to Socrates and Plato, we also need to know what it is in each of them that makes them distinctexemplifications of that extra-mental reality.

Scotus calls the extra-mental universal the “common nature” (natura communis) and the principle of individuation the “haecceity” (haecceitas). The common nature is common in that it is “indifferent” to existing in any number of individuals. But it has extra-mental existence only inthe particular things in which it exists, and in them it is always “contracted” by the haecceity. So the common nature humanity exists in both Socrates and Plato, although in Socrates it is made individual by Socrates's haecceitas and in Plato by Plato's haecceitas. The humanity-of-Socrates is individual and non-repeatable, as is the humanity-of-Plato; yet humanity itself is common and repeatable, and it is ontologically prior to any particular exemplification of it (Ordinatio 2, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–6, translated in Spade [1994], 57–113)."
 
"What I would really like though is a succinct statement or way of describing the question that is WIAM in a way shows it to be different to other very similar and related philosophical questions."

Can you list these and state (if un-succinctly) how WAIM is different?

  • If there is SIIL (something it is like) to be a bat...then how is WAIM different from the puzzle of why the SIIL for that bat is for that bat and not another?
Ok... un-succinct stuff:
What is the question WAIM about? Well that depends on how you say it, which of the four words you emphasise in the phrase and then, following from this, how you interpret the emphasis conceptually.
WAIM a phenomenological inquiry perhaps: What is the content of my being?... An intropsective examination/exploration... the 'I' has an antiaccent.
WAIM equates to WIAMANSE... the 'me' has an antiaccent
WIA This could be a general question about evolution and what it determines...
WAIM Why did I even turn up as me? What is my particular purpose?
BM problem, subjectivity, Being, identity, experiential content and its quality, soul, third/first person, existence, me.
Some questions come under the banner of the metaphysical, epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological. The question I am trying to articulate is exceptional to these banners... it is a different category of question? or is it? Where were we before phenomenology? was there phenomenolgy without the label?
 
"What I would really like though is a succinct statement or way of describing the question that is WIAM in a way shows it to be different to other very similar and related philosophical questions."

Can you list these and state (if un-succinctly) how WAIM is different?

  • If there is SIIL (something it is like) to be a bat...then how is WAIM different from the puzzle of why the SIIL for that bat is for that bat and not another?
Ok... un-succinct stuff:
What is the question WAIM about? Well that depends on how you say it, which of the four words you emphasise in the phrase and then, following from this, how you interpret the emphasis conceptually.
WAIM a phenomenological inquiry perhaps: What is the content of my being?... An intropsective examination/exploration... the 'I' has an antiaccent.
WAIM equates to WIAMANSE... the 'me' has an antiaccent
WIA This could be a general question about evolution and what it determines...
WAIM Why did I even turn up as me? What is my particular purpose?
BM problem, subjectivity, Being, identity, experiential content and its quality, soul, third/first person, existence, me.
Some questions come under the banner of the metaphysical, epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological. The question I am trying to articulate is exceptional to these banners... it is a different category of question? or is it? Where were we before phenomenology? was there phenomenolgy without the label?
 
Ok... un-succinct stuff:
What is the question WAIM about? Well that depends on how you say it, which of the four words you emphasise in the phrase and then, following from this, how you interpret the emphasis conceptually.
WAIM a phenomenological inquiry perhaps: What is the content of my being?... An intropsective examination/exploration... the 'I' has an antiaccent.
WAIM equates to WIAMANSE... the 'me' has an antiaccent
WIA This could be a general question about evolution and what it determines...
WAIM Why did I even turn up as me? What is my particular purpose?
BM problem, subjectivity, Being, identity, experiential content and its quality, soul, third/first person, existence, me.
Some questions come under the banner of the metaphysical, epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological. The question I am trying to articulate is exceptional to these banners... it is a different category of question? or is it? Where were we before phenomenology? was there phenomenolgy without the label?
Right. Okay. With WIAM we're just asking why does I = M. That's self explanatory. We might as well just ask WIA? So we go existential. Why anything? This is separate from the uniqueness question we tackled earlier. I don't know the answer to this one. I'm tempted to get into the idea of cause and effect, but that gets mucky really quickly.
 
Ok... un-succinct stuff:
What is the question WAIM about? Well that depends on how you say it, which of the four words you emphasise in the phrase and then, following from this, how you interpret the emphasis conceptually.
WAIM a phenomenological inquiry perhaps: What is the content of my being?... An intropsective examination/exploration... the 'I' has an antiaccent.
WAIM equates to WIAMANSE... the 'me' has an antiaccent
WIA This could be a general question about evolution and what it determines...
WAIM Why did I even turn up as me? What is my particular purpose?
BM problem, subjectivity, Being, identity, experiential content and its quality, soul, third/first person, existence, me.
Some questions come under the banner of the metaphysical, epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological. The question I am trying to articulate is exceptional to these banners... it is a different category of question? or is it? Where were we before phenomenology? was there phenomenolgy without the label?

@Pharoah writes:

"To my way of thinking, articulating the question succinctly would be the most potent comeback to people who think that there is nothing that science/objectivity cannot tackle in principle, or who think that there is nothing special about the situation... of the particular self."

I'm not sure that question is different from any question that shows the
irreconcilability of the subjective/objective.

As for the specialness of the individual situation, it seems the use of "special" here- "the special situation of the individual" is predicated in terms of the individual to begin with. The objectivist downplays the value of this by saying its a collection of Sciotusian "accidents" - everyone is different in just the same way. But then the objectivist claims special consideration of this view despite its applicability to his own "special situation".
 
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I am sure.

And you know how much that counts in convincing others....

We never got an answer to my question asking for a list of the very similar and related questions from which it differs?

@Pharoah:
"What I would really like though is a succinct statement or way of describing the question that is WIAM in a way shows it to be different to other very similar and related philosophical questions."

What are those questions?

Second, your implying it's different from these questions....but aren't they different from one another? Is it special because it differs differently from how the others differ from each other? If so it's maybe a different question and you've just not found its peers? What I'm trying to sort here is what you mean by special? You said it would be the best rebuttal to the scientistic/objectivist claim but it seems any argument that shows the subj/obj gap could do, depending on what needed convincing...further, what exactly is it that you are wanting the objectivist to admit to?

What battle are you fighting, with whom and what does it mean to win?
 
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Some questions come under the banner of the metaphysical, epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological. The question I am trying to articulate is exceptional to these banners... it is a different category of question? or is it? Where were we before phenomenology? was there phenomenology without the label?

This paper by Zahavi might be helpful. I haven't read it yet, but here are the abstract and opening paragraphs:

Phenomenology of self
Dan Zahavi
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract
Initially, three different philosophical concepts of self are distinguished: a Kantian, a hermeneutical, and a phenomenological concept. The phenomenological concept is then analysed in detail. The first step of the analysis consists in an investigation of the first-personal givenness of phenomenal consciousness; the second step involves a discussion of different concepts of self-consciousness, a discussion which culminates in a criticism of the so-called higher-order representation theory. In conclusion, the article provides some examples of how the phenomenological concept of self may be of use in empirical science (psychiatry and developmental psychology).

Introduction

In the following chapter, I wish to outline and discuss some of the reflections on self that can be found in phenomenology. But let me start with a cautionary remark. Phenomenology is not the name of a philosophical position. It is the name of a philosophical tradition inaugurated by Husserl (1859–1938), and comprising among its best-known champions philosophers like Scheler, Heidegger, Schutz, Gurwitsch, Fink, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, Ricoeur, and Henry. Like any other philosophical tradition, the phenomenological tradition spans many differences. This also holds true for its treatment and analysis of the self. In short, there is not one single phenomenological account of the self, just as there is not one single account of the self to be found in analytical philosophy. There are a variety of different accounts. In what follows, I have consequently been forced to make a certain selection, and to focus on what I take to be one of the most promising proposals.

Different notions of self

It would be something of an exaggeration to claim that the concept of self is unequivocal and that there is a widespread consensus about what exactly it means to be a self. Quite to the contrary, the contemporary discussion is bursting with completing and competing notions of self. In a well-known article from 1988, Ulric Neisser distinguished five different selves: the ecological self, the interpersonal self, the extended self, the private self, and the conceptual self (Neisser, 1988, p. 35). Eleven years later, Galen Strawson summed up a recent discussion on the self that had taken place in the Journal of Consciousness Studies by enumerating no fewer than 21 concepts of self (Strawson, 1999, p. 484). Given this escalating abundance it is very easy to talk at cross-purposes, particularly in an interdisciplinary context. One cannot simply take it for granted that one’s interlocutor understands the same by the term self as one self. Some kind of taxonomy is obviously called for, so let me start by contrasting the notion of self which I wish to present with two other paradigmatic ways of conceiving of the self. . . ."

Phenomenology of self
 
The following paper describes an understanding of the nature of human being-as-becoming as supported by analyses of phenomenological experience, phenomenological and process philosophies, contemporary insights reached in affective neuroscience, and psychological insights developed in transpersonal psychology. Primarily it confirms the existential-phenomenological descriptions of human experience and thinking as ultimately disclosing the unfinished nature of both the self and the world in their mutual interpenetration in 'being-together'.

Individual Transformation
The Phenomenology of the Self: Revealing the Universal Life Force at the Heart of Human Experience
By Bonnitta Roy

First paragraph:

"Deep Phenomenology

Deep Phenomenology1 is the term I give for the practice of noticing the root structures of experience by observing them directly as experience unfolds, moment to moment. In a trained meditative state, we can learn how to slow down and disentangle the complex knot of stimuli: emotions, memories, inner speech, discursive thought, and idiosyncratic neuroses that typically constitute our everyday experience. As we learn to relax and concentrate, we observe the contents of the constant stream of stimuli that operate ‘under the radar’ of ordinary experience. As we deepen our practice, we begin to discern the various structures of experience and the patterns they generate. As we cultivate deeper clarity and more refined sensitivity, we discover the generative sources of experience as a dynamic interplay of feeling, perception, and knowing. Deep phenomenology is a practice that enables us to see how these three ‘modes of experience’ arise, develop, persist, change, and perish. We observe that the modes of experience always arise in the same sequence, from feeling to perception to knowing; we notice them develop through mutual interactions into a compositional whole, which is the sense of the self. We learn how they persist as iterative structures, change through complex adaptive dynamics, and perish in the in-between of the moment-to-moment pulse of experience. Contemplative phenomenological practices and neuroscience both describe experience as a wave-like process that begins with a deep, affective inner core that rises from the somato-sensory channels2 and articulates ‘out’ to the world via the percepto-sensory pathways,3 and ultimately reflects back into the self as self-knowing in the form of mentation, speech, or gesture. This process is genetic and iterative, so that patterns are created that affect the possibility of the next experiential pulse arising in such a way as to conserve the sense of a holistic, enduring self. . . ."

The Phenomenology of the Self: Revealing the Universal Life Force at the Heart of Human Experience

p53-dogendactyl.jpg
 
And you know how much that counts in convincing others....

We never got an answer to my question asking for a list of the very similar and related questions from which it differs?

@Pharoah:
"What I would really like though is a succinct statement or way of describing the question that is WIAM in a way shows it to be different to other very similar and related philosophical questions."

What are those questions?

Second, your implying it's different from these questions....but aren't they different from one another? Is it special because it differs differently from how the others differ from each other? If so it's maybe a different question and you've just not found its peers? What I'm trying to sort here is what you mean by special? You said it would be the best rebuttal to the scientistic/objectivist claim but it seems any argument that shows the subj/obj gap could do, depending on what needed convincing...further, what exactly is it that you are wanting the objectivist to admit to?

What battle are you fighting, with whom and what does it mean to win?
@smcder I was merely bouncing off your "I am not sure..."
My answer to your question was expressed in the list of different ways of emphasising WAIM. I must have been clear as mud.

Say in the future, humans develop a computer that can do enough calculations to show that causal processes lead to the evolution of complex forms, to life, and to organisms with subjective embedded views about the world. It demonstrates that individuals with 'minds' come into existence.
Has the computer discovered anything about itself? Well, if you assume it has just performed calculations, the answer is no.

Ok, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!... But the person knows nothing about itself.

Alternatively, none of the two examples above are achievable because something other than logic or reason is required for an understanding (or physicalist explanation) of anything to do with subjectivity or the existence of minds.
 
Alternatively, none of the two examples above are achievable because something other than logic or reason is required for an understanding (or physicalist explanation) of anything to do with subjectivity or the existence of minds.

That's worth repeating ten or twelve times (though I'd recommend dropping the parenthetical reference to 'physicalist explanation' as a synonym for 'understanding'. After my last post I found in my queue of recent posts a very good post by @Thomas R Morrison responding in Randle's thread "Philosophy, Science, and the Unexplained" to R's attempts on the basis of what he calls 'critical thinking' (based in current human 'logic' and materialism/physicalism) to demonstrate that 'personhood'/personal identity cannot survive physical death on earth. I read back two pages from Thomas's post to see the lead-up to it in that thread. From Randle's lead-up posts I'd decided to point out there that 'logic' based in positivist/materialist/physicalist presuppositions is radically limited/compromised by those presuppositions. The point being that "an understanding" of being and, more broadly, Being, is unavailable to presuppositional logic and resulting 'science' and instead must rely on the experience of being -- one's own and that of innumerable others as expressed in the history of our species' descriptions of experienced being/lived reality.

Here's the link to Thomas's post, from which you can read back to the posts by Randle to which he was responding:

Philosophy, Science, and the Unexplained

ETA: While I think Thomas's post is a good response to Randle's presuppositional thinking, I think it stops short of pursuing the possibilities of survival of consciousness as including deep memory of terrestrial experience on earth, including the intensity of feeling and thought that are included in our remembered pasts as we carry them forward in memory while still embodied. In Thomas's last four paragraphs, reproduced below, he comes up against the difficulty we experience when we attempt to understand how the selfhood/personhood we have experienced in embodied existence could be carried forward into another kind of existence. That we can't conceive of how this might be possible does not mean that it is not possible.

The concluding paragraphs of Thomas's post:

"Rather, I think the dynamics involved would go something more like this: we exist within an intangible field of consciousness that permeates the universe, and at the deepest level this is our true and deathless identity. The brain is only some kind of radio receiver for consciousness, and perhaps the peculiarities of our individuals brains result in the reception of slightly different qualities of reception signal from this background field, akin to different radio receivers tuned to different wavelengths.

Ultimately when we try to identify the “self,” what we’re actually talking about, is our watchful awareness. And things like memories and thoughts are just the traffic that parades in front of this silent conscious observer within. So I think it’s plausible that this silent observer self could essentially be the cosmos observing itself through your eyes, and mine.

But I don’t see any manner in which our memories and hopes and dreams – which are stored in our neurological hard drives, could survive death. And maybe that’s a good thing, idk.

So could the most fundamental essence of our being, consciousness itself, survive death? Sure, why not? I just don’t know how assuring that concept is for those of us who cling to the loves, and hopes, and dreams that we’ve accrued in this life."
 
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@smcder I was merely bouncing off your "I am not sure..."
My answer to your question was expressed in the list of different ways of emphasising WAIM. I must have been clear as mud.

Say in the future, humans develop a computer that can do enough calculations to show that causal processes lead to the evolution of complex forms, to life, and to organisms with subjective embedded views about the world. It demonstrates that individuals with 'minds' come into existence.
Has the computer discovered anything about itself? Well, if you assume it has just performed calculations, the answer is no.

Ok, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!... But the person knows nothing about itself.

Alternatively, none of the two examples above are achievable because something other than logic or reason is required for an understanding (or physicalist explanation) of anything to do with subjectivity or the existence of minds.

I thought that might be the list but I didn't see those as closely related or similar problems...I see those as coming from a sense of contingency around the why I am me question...but I don't think it is contingent, so those questions get an existential or other basis not a basis on my existence as special.
 
@smcder I was merely bouncing off your "I am not sure..."
My answer to your question was expressed in the list of different ways of emphasising WAIM. I must have been clear as mud.

Say in the future, humans develop a computer that can do enough calculations to show that causal processes lead to the evolution of complex forms, to life, and to organisms with subjective embedded views about the world. It demonstrates that individuals with 'minds' come into existence.
Has the computer discovered anything about itself? Well, if you assume it has just performed calculations, the answer is no.

Ok, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!... But the person knows nothing about itself.

Alternatively, none of the two examples above are achievable because something other than logic or reason is required for an understanding (or physicalist explanation) of anything to do with subjectivity or the existence of minds.

"Say in the future, humans develop a computer that can do enough calculations to show that causal processes lead to the evolution of complex forms, to life, and to organisms with subjective embedded views about the world. It demonstrates that individuals with 'minds' come into existence.
Has the computer discovered anything about itself? Well, if you assume it has just performed calculations, the answer is no.

Ok, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!"

I've always assumed this is what you mean when you say that HCT "solves" the hard problem?
 
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[Pharoah wrote]"OK, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!... But the person knows nothing about itself."

I've always assumed this is what you mean when you say that HCT "solves" the hard problem?

I need help understanding this last-posted exchange.

Re @Pharoah's quoted statement above, why does Pharoah think that "the person knows nothing about itself"?

Re Steve's reply, what does Steve mean by 'this' in his statement that "I've always assumed this is what you mean when you say that HCT "solves" the hard problem?"

Thanks for further insights into the nut of what you both seem to be talking about in that exchange.


ps, I have a vague sense that the nut that needs to be cracked in that exchange has its source in Pharoah's references to 'mechanisms' in his development of HCT [Hierarchical Construct Theory] and to Steve's efforts to balance his ideas between an informational/computational explanation of 'what is' in a 'physical sense' and a recognition of the existential [thus always temporally open-ended] nature of the lived experience of humans and other animals by virtue of their various developments of protoconsciousness and consciousness. {??}
 
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Steve just added:

I thought that might be the list but I didn't see those as closely related or similar problems...I see those as coming from a sense of contingency around the why I am me question...but I don't think it is contingent, so those questions get an existential or other basis not a basis on my existence as special.

Again I find myself needing clarification. What work do you need the term 'contingency' to do? After the 'but' in your post:

"but I don't think it is contingent, so those questions get an existential or other basis not a basis on my existence as special"

are you saying that what becomes of the 'self' is not contingent on the interrelation between what happens in the individual's lived environment and what the individual is prepared to, capable of, adding to environmental realities, in either action or thought and in terms of feeling?
 
I need help understanding this last-posted exchange.

Re @Pharoah's quoted statement above, why does Pharoah think that "the person knows nothing about itself"?

Re Steve's reply, what does Steve mean by 'this' in his statement that "I've always assumed this is what you mean when you say that HCT "solves" the hard problem?"

Thanks for further insights into the nut of what you both seem to be talking about in that exchange.


ps, I have a vague sense that the nut that needs to be cracked in that exchange has its source in Pharoah's references to 'mechanisms' in his development of HCT [Hierarchical Construct Theory] and to Steve's efforts to balance his ideas between an informational/computational explanation of 'what is' in a 'physical sense' and a recognition of the existential [thus always temporally open-ended] nature of the lived experience of humans and other animals by virtue of their various developments of protoconsciousness and consciousness. {??}

"Say in the future, humans develop a computer that can do enough calculations to show that causal processes lead to the evolution of complex forms, to life, and to organisms with subjective embedded views about the world. It demonstrates that individuals with 'minds' come into existence.
Has the computer discovered anything about itself? Well, if you assume it has just performed calculations, the answer is no.

Ok, now replace the computer with a person. That person makes the same discovery about complex forms, life, and subjective embedded views. Minds must exist the person cries!"

HCT explains the appearance of consciousness out of a series of hierachies produced by systems seeking equilibrium and its role in assessing the qualitative value of the environment for the organism.

As in @Pharoah's hypothetical above, HCT accounts for why minds have come into existence.

Solving the Hard Problem, on the other hand, would be to take this computer analysis to the point that the calculations would not only show that minds must exist but would literally show what it is like to be a mind, i.e. what it is like to have a point of view.

I agree this is quiet impossible, but it is the hard problem.

Nagel puts it as watching a brain scan of a person tasting chocolate...and tasting the chocolate. (Or something like that. I wish I could find the quote.)
 
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Steve just added:



Again I find myself needing clarification. What work do you need the term 'contingency' to do? After the 'but' in your post:

"but I don't think it is contingent, so those questions get an existential or other basis not a basis on my existence as special"

are you saying that what becomes of the 'self' is not contingent on the interrelation between what happens in the individual's lived environment and what the individual is prepared to, capable of, adding to environmental realities, in either action or thought and in terms of feeling?

No. I'm just saying that it can feel contingent, that it can feel like it could have been otherwise, that it can feel vertiginous, that of all these consciousnesses, one of them is you, you.

But it's not, it could not have been otherwise.

To me, that doesn't change the world, nor does it tell us anything about what to make of our lives, which, to me, is the very hard problem and the most interesting one, but WAIM? offers no help and grants us no special status as being I who I am (me) and not someone else.

We are simply here, now...now, what shall we do here?
 
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Ultimately, I think @Pharoah is correct in arguing that it is one's personally lived experience -- lived being generating the sense of selfhood, that grounds the understanding that lived reality cannot be explained by objectivist presuppositional thinking in science or logic. We originally understand the lived quality of being first within our own experiences, and subsequently in our encounters with 'others' [human and also animal others] in whom we sense similar felt and lived experience going forward within the contingencies of our separate existences in the selfsame, always temporally unfolding, 'world'.
 
HCT explains the appearance of consciousness out of a series of hierachies produced by systems seeking equilibrium and its role in assessing the qualitative value of the environment for the organism.

As in @Pharoah's hypothetical above, accounting for why minds have come into existence.

Right.

Solving the Hard Problem, on the other hand, would be to take this computer analysis to the point that the calculations would not only show that minds must exist but what it is like to be a mind, i.e. to have a point of view. I agree this is quiet impossible, but it is the hard problem. Nagel puts it as watching a brain scan of a person tasting chocolate...and tasting the chocolate. Or something like that. I wish I could find the quote.

(I don't think Nagel is particularly helpful in that metaphor.) In my view, it's doubtful that we ourselves, let alone computers, even 'supercomputers', could ever "solve" the hard problem [unless supercomputers could be embedded in organic bodies and experience existence as we do . . . then proceed through something like the history of human philosophies . . . and eventually discover the phenomenology of their experiential being]. For the time being, the hard problem is preeminently our condition: i.e., the reason why we are stirred and moved by our own experiences in and of the world in which we find ourselves existing; the source of our impulses toward further involvement with, and comprehension of, the world and other beings in it; the wellspring of our almost irrepressible impulses toward expression of what we feel and what we think; indeed, in this regard, the soul of philosophy. The hard problem of consciousness, and the mind-body problem in general, are inescapably parts of {embedded in} 'what is' for us in our efforts to 'make sense' of what is. The 'hard problem' is thus a 'problem' for positivists and analytical philosophers (and for others still caught in the nets of their presuppositional paradigm), but not for phenomenologists, for whom lived experience itself is the field to be plowed and worked in the effort to make sense of being and Being.
 
Right.



(I don't think Nagel is particularly helpful in that metaphor.) In my view, it's doubtful that we ourselves, let alone computers, even 'supercomputers', could ever "solve" the hard problem [unless supercomputers could be embedded in organic bodies and experience existence as we do . . . then proceed through something like the history of human philosophies . . . and eventually discover the phenomenology of their experiential being]. For the time being, the hard problem is preeminently our condition: i.e., the reason why we are stirred and moved by our own experiences in and of the world in which we find ourselves existing; the source of our impulses toward further involvement with, and comprehension of, the world and other beings in it; the wellspring of our almost irrepressible impulses toward expression of what we feel and what we think; indeed, in this regard, the soul of philosophy. The hard problem of consciousness, and the mind-body problem in general, are inescapably parts of {embedded in} 'what is' for us in our efforts to 'make sense' of what is. The 'hard problem' is thus a 'problem' for positivists and analytical philosophers (and for others still caught in the nets of their presuppositional paradigm), but not for phenomenologists, for whom lived experience itself is the field to be plowed and worked in the effort to make sense of being and Being.

Well put. I'm not doing Nagel justice I'm sure....but he is trying to show the physicalists just what their claim....to provide an objective account of everything would actually mean.
 
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