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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11


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I think natural selection is as good a candidate as any.

If you're asking why matter has structural properties in the first place, I don't know. Of course, materialists don't know either.

My current "placeholder" for an answer is a la Unbound Telesis.

I'm looking for papers or websites devoted to explicating 'Unbound Telesis' in some detail. So far I've come up with the material at the following link, which I'll attempt to read and understand. On the righthand column at that page the following definition appears, followed by further material:

"Unbound Telesis (UBT) - a primordial realm of infocognitive potential free of informational constraint. In CTMU cosmogony, "nothingness" is informationally defined as zero constraint or pure freedom (unbound telesis or UBT), and the apparent construction of the universe is explained as a self-restriction of this potential. In a realm of unbound ontological potential, defining a constraint is not as simple as merely writing it down; because constraints act restrictively on content, constraint and content must be defined simultaneously in a unified syntax-state relationship.

fractal.jpg


(Click for animation - large file)

Hology is a logical analogue of holography characterizing the most general relationship between reality and its contents. It is a form of self-similarity whereby the overall structure of the universe is everywhere distributed within it as accepting and transductive syntax, resulting in a homogeneous syntactic medium.

What is Holotheism?

Holotheism is the theological system implied by logical theology. Its fundamental premise is that the Mind of God is the ultimate reality…that is, reality in its most basic and most general form. It is thus related to panentheism, but in addition to being more refined, is more compatible with monotheism in that its "mental" characterization of God implies that divine nature is more in keeping with established theological traditions. . . ."

Teleologic Evolution - Hologic Identity - CTMU - Intelligent Design
 
"Unbound Telesis (UBT) - a primordial realm of infocognitive potential free of informational constraint. In CTMU cosmogony, "nothingness" is informationally defined as zero constraint or pure freedom (unbound telesis or UBT), and the apparent construction of the universe is explained as a self-restriction of this potential. In a realm of unbound ontological potential, defining a constraint is not as simple as merely writing it down; because constraints act restrictively on content, constraint and content must be defined simultaneously in a unified syntax-state relationship.
Yes, that's it.

As for the rest of the CTMU, be careful going down that rabbit hole. In fact I wouldn't recommend it.
 
Counterfactuals and Explanatory Pluralism
KareemKhalifa GabrielDoble JaredMillson

Abstract

Recent literature on noncausal explanation raises the question as to whether
explanatory monism, the thesis that all explanations submit to the same analysis, is true.
The leading monist proposal holds that all explanations support change-relating
counterfactuals. We provide several objections to this monist position.

1 Introduction
2 CR-Monism’s Three Problems
3 Dependency and Monism: Unhappy Together
4 Another Challenge: Counterfactual Incidentalism
4.1 High-grade necessity
4.2 Unity in diversity
5 Conclusion


http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14664/1/BJPS.pdf
 
Motivating Dualities
James Read∗and Thomas Møller-Nielsen†
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK

Abstract

There exists a common view that for theories related by a ‘duality’, dual models typically may be taken ab initio to represent the same physical state of affairs, i.e. to correspond to the same possible world. We question this view, by drawing a parallel with the distinction between ‘interpretational’ and ‘motivational’ approaches to symmetries.

Contents
1 Introduction 2
2 Models and Gauge 4
3 Interpretation and Motivation 5
3.1 Two Approaches to Symmetries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Newtonian Gravitation Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3 Motivating Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4 Equivalence and Duality 19
4.1 Theoretical Equivalence and Duality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2 Underdetermination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5 Duality as Motivation 22
5.1 Interpretation and Motivation, Reprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2 Motivating Dualities as Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3 Confident and Cautious Motivational Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6 Consensus 31
7 Close 33

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14663/1/Motivating_dualities_may_8_2018.pdf
 
@Soupie

When I think of Idealism, I think that it means there is not an external, mind independent world - rather the world is mental and if that's so, then why is there inter-subjective agreement and even seeming agreement about the world from vastly different species - we can understand the behavior of the "meanest" of organisms, even single cells and less complicated structures like viruses in the same terms we understand the world - ? In other words, Idealism means the world is a psychic construct and if so, how did "we" arrive at the world we have (and, for that matter, how did "we" arrive, why is there more than one mind?), rather than a world like that in our imaginations and in our dreams? A mercurial, ever changing reality? Positing a real, external world that we can get some (imperfect) grip on ... seems more parsimonious for that bit - now, getting the mental into it, is tricky ...

Protoconsciousness ... compare this to proto-materialism? We don't have proto-matter, we have quarks and particles, and although we might not a priori know what happens when we combine Os and Hs, the result is physical, a molecule ... Chalmers has argued that consciousness is the only case of "strong emergence" and that's a problem ... but as I understand your attraction to your view, it is that consciousness is already there, so doesn't need an explanation (like matter is for a materialist) ... but it seems you complicate that when you resort to proto-consciousness, because the whole thing is getting the problematic stuff (consciousness) IN ... so if proto-consciousness isn't consciousness, how do you solve the hard problem of proto-consciousness? How do you go from proto-consciousness to full blown consciousness? The tiniest gap in proto-consciousness and consciousness is a yawning chasm ...


upload_2018-5-14_23-25-43.jpeg

But if proto-consciousness has all the qualities of consciousness, it's not proto-anything.

Experiences without a subject ... ok, all I ask is for some coherent talk about that ... experiences are defined in terms of a subject, and a subject is what has experiences ...

upload_2018-5-14_23-27-43.jpeg


... this is where Strawson and Russell's view runs out of answers, I think Strawson is right, we don't know anything about matter that precludes it from being consciousness, but we sure don't know what about it might clude it ... and so it's not yet conclusive ... and you have to go from some kind of "instrinsic" nature to actual subjects having experiences - and it seems like the physical structure plays a role in having those experiences, but what is the relationship of the structure of the "intrinsic" to the structure of the "extrinsic"? we think brains have something to do with it - but different kinds of brains, different extrinsic structures ....

Homolog of mammalian neocortex found in bird brain

seem to both have experiences ... intrinsic qualities that are similar ... if so, what selects for both extrinsic and intrinsic structures? Is experience a lucky result of organizing into brains? If so, why does it seem to match up with the other qualities of the brain and directly affect (and more importantly, effect them?)
 
@Soupie

When I think of Idealism, I think that it means there is not an external, mind independent world - rather the world is mental and if that's so, then why is there inter-subjective agreement and even seeming agreement about the world from vastly different species - we can understand the behavior of the "meanest" of organisms, even single cells and less complicated structures like viruses in the same terms we understand the world - ? In other words, Idealism means the world is a psychic construct and if so, how did "we" arrive at the world we have (and, for that matter, how did "we" arrive, why is there more than one mind?), rather than a world like that in our imaginations and in our dreams? A mercurial, ever changing reality? Positing a real, external world that we can get some (imperfect) grip on ... seems more parsimonious for that bit - now, getting the mental into it, is tricky ...

Protoconsciousness ... compare this to proto-materialism? We don't have proto-matter, we have quarks and particles, and although we might not a priori know what happens when we combine Os and Hs, the result is physical, a molecule ... Chalmers has argued that consciousness is the only case of "strong emergence" and that's a problem ... but as I understand your attraction to your view, it is that consciousness is already there, so doesn't need an explanation (like matter is for a materialist) ... but it seems you complicate that when you resort to proto-consciousness, because the whole thing is getting the problematic stuff (consciousness) IN ... so if proto-consciousness isn't consciousness, how do you solve the hard problem of proto-consciousness? How do you go from proto-consciousness to full blown consciousness? The tiniest gap in proto-consciousness and consciousness is a yawning chasm ...


upload_2018-5-14_23-25-43.jpeg

But if proto-consciousness has all the qualities of consciousness, it's not proto-anything.

Experiences without a subject ... ok, all I ask is for some coherent talk about that ... experiences are defined in terms of a subject, and a subject is what has experiences ...

upload_2018-5-14_23-27-43.jpeg


... this is where Strawson and Russell's view runs out of answers, I think Strawson is right, we don't know anything about matter that precludes it from being consciousness, but we sure don't know what about it might clude it ... and so it's not yet conclusive ... and you have to go from some kind of "instrinsic" nature to actual subjects having experiences - and it seems like the physical structure plays a role in having those experiences, but what is the relationship of the structure of the "intrinsic" to the structure of the "extrinsic"? we think brains have something to do with it - but different kinds of brains, different extrinsic structures ....

Homolog of mammalian neocortex found in bird brain

seem to both have experiences ... intrinsic qualities that are similar ... if so, what selects for both extrinsic and intrinsic structures? Is experience a lucky result of organizing into brains? If so, why does it seem to match up with the other qualities of the brain and directly affect (and more importantly, effect them?)

"... this is where Strawson and Russell's view runs out of answers, I think Strawson is right, we don't know anything about matter that precludes it from being consciousness, but we sure don't know what about it might clude it ... and so it's not yet conclusive ... and you have to go from some kind of "instrinsic" nature to actual subjects having experiences - and it seems like the physical structure plays a role in having those experiences, but what is the relationship of the structure of the "intrinsic" to the structure of the "extrinsic"? we think brains have something to do with it - but different kinds of brains, different extrinsic structures ...."

Seconding everything you've written here, Steve, with gratitude for your clear thinking and skillful exposition.

@Pharoah wrote more than a year ago in this thread that he found the term 'protoconsciousness' to be too ill-defined, or undefined, to be useful {I hope I'm expressing that accurately, and hope Pharoah will join us at this point to discuss this further}. The question of the evolution and development of consciousness seems to me to require investigations such as those undertaken by Jaak Panksepp and his colleagues in Affective Neuroscience as an effort to comprehend how awareness, emotion, instinct, and learning are layers of protoconsciousness we must investigate before we can understand the roots of experience as the biologically empirical ground out of which mind evolves.
 
Here is a book [pub. 2009] that we might well read at this point in our discussion, though it is extremely and unnecessarily expensive we might all want to find copies in our libraries or through interlibrary loan. In a next post I'll also link a paper by the Gordon Globus published last year in a journal titled NeuroQuantology …..

The Transparent Becoming of World: A crossing between process philosophy and quantum neurophilosophy (Advances in Consciousness Research)
by Gordon G. Globus


Amazon's book description: "The Transparent Becoming of World undertakes a penetrating inquiry into the quotidian world we take for granted and the brain that silently hoists our bubbles of world-thrownness. After critiquing the traditional views of direct realism, indirect realism and idealism, the continual becoming of world is explained by a novel integration of process dynamics, as formulated by Whitehead, Heidegger and Bohm, with the burgeoning field of quantum neurophilosophy. A rich ontological duality newly opened by quantum brain theory is exploited: the “between-two” of dual quantum modes. Existence as world-thrownness is between-two in waking and dreaming alike. This highly original interdisciplinary book may be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, consciousness researchers, indeed anyone attracted to the enigma of their own lived existence. (Series A)"

I doubt that the following review of this book posted at amazon actually comprehends what Globus is arguing, but it can serve as an overview of how Globus proceeds in his thinking:

"On the Borderline of Being and Time: Between Two
By Gregory Nixon on February 19, 2012
Format: Hardcover
The purpose of this review is to attempt to come to grips with the elusive vision of Gordon Globus, especially as revealed in this, his latest book. However, one can only grip that which is tangible and solid and Globus's marriage of Heideggerian anti-concepts and 'quantum neurophilosophy' seems purposefully to evade solidity or grasp. This slippery anti-metaphysics is sometimes a curse for the reader seeking imagistic or conceptual clarity, but, on the other hand, it is also the blessing that allows Globus to go far beyond (or deep within) the usual narrative explanations at the frontiers of physics, even that of the quantum variety.

'For the sorcerer it is always dawn' (Durand, 1976, p. 102)

Gordon Globus MD is a practicing psychiatrist and a Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Philosophy from the University of California Irvine. His work with human minds drew him into consciousness studies before the discipline became recognized as a discipline. As early as 1976 with *Consciousness and the Brain: A scientific and philosophical inquiry*, Globus attempted to bestride the seemingly incompatible worlds of philosophy and science. His early acquaintance with the famed (and sometimes maligned) Carlos Castañeda indicates he already had an interest in transformative experience and the mingling of dream reality with daytime reality. Dreaming, with the central perspective of the dreamer amidst a continually shifting ground of place and time and dramatis personae, may have led Globus to his notion that our life-narratives or lived realities in linear time disguise the fact that reality is similar to dreaming; our situation in an objective, unchanging world is a transparent illusion over the basic fact of being situated at all. This is to say, we always find ourselves, in both dreams and reality, situated in a particular place and time and with various dramatis personae and, as we act in this situation, particular pasts and futures emerge (see Globus, 1986). It seems likely his understanding of visions, dreams, and the aberrant situations of some of his patients led to him to feel a unique kinship with Heidegger's concept of thrownness, of finding ourselves thrown into being and subsequently developing a consciousness of direction in time and space as we dealt with it. So when he declares in *Transparent Becoming* (2009), 'To our surprise, quantum neurophysics has turned out Heideggerian' (p. 149), that surprise must have long duration since Globus attempted to merge neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and Heidegger as early as 1995 when he wrote *The Postmodern Brain* (to the perplexity of many).

*The Transparent Becoming of the World* is a short book at 154 pages of text, but it is long read. At first reading, I confess I found it numbingly frustrating because the use of Heidegger's invented terminology shaken and stirred in with the already ambiguous terminology of quantum neurophilosophy (itself an intermingling of quantum physics, neuroscience and free speculation) simply did not compute. Trying to grasp what Globus is getting at often seemed like the proverbial attempt to hold a rushing stream in one's hand. I confess I had to put the book aside for a time. However, when I realized that Globus seemed to be relying on spatial metaphors when what he was really referencing was time, the second reading bore more fruit (even if it was a strange fruit indeed).

By now, the meaning of the title should be, well, transparent. We cannot perceive how the world 'becomes' because the actual process of becoming is invisible: we see right through it. We generally just accept the world as given, at least as it is given to us in our sane, daylight hours. The world seems real; therefore, it must be real. Of course, we have learned that our senses interpret this reality in particular ways and our culturally-given concepts frame those sensory interpretations, so what we perceive is a re-presentation of reality, apparently existing in our brains. This is indirect realism, the commonly accepted paradigm of science. It is still within the umbrella monism of materialism or physicalism (as opposed to, say, the previous favourite dualism, as evident in Cartesianism, or the other monism of idealism, in which only the mind is real, or the now popular twist dual-aspect monism). How does the world really come into being? According to Globus, the best answer is found in the unlikely crossroads of quantum field thermodynamics (what he calls quantum neurophilosophy, a mysterious subject in its own right), process cosmology (in which dynamic becoming is ultimate, not physical stuff), and, unmentioned in the title, Martin Heidegger's abstruse anti-ontology.

Globus has always been a maverick voice in consciousness studies, taking a perspective that is uniquely his own by embracing positions that one would assume are contrary (such as quantum physics and so-called postmodern philosophy). These positions are often non-positions that can only be (somewhat) understood in their trajectories. In the same way Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allows us to know only position or momentum but never both at once, Globus employs abstract conceptions that often seem to resist imagery, so uncertainty is as central to his writing as it is to quantum physics. He resists choosing between logical alternatives in the 'either/or' sense, even while he complexifies 'both/and' approaches that would blandly unify such alternatives. Instead of differentiation or unification he insists on a between-two dynamic in which neither of the 'two' pre-exist the dynamic of their betweenness yet the betweenness is not an entity or monad that can exist without the two it is between. If this seems obscure, and it should, my summary of his book below will attempt further elucidation, but, be warned, some of Globus's concepts -- especially those whose source is in Heidegger's invented terminology -- simply resist elucidation.

Globus begins with an introduction that outlines up his perspective so well it almost makes the rest of the book superfluous. The reader immediately feels himself thrown into a rapidly flowing stream of ideas with neither a solid image to grasp nor a conceptual ground to stand on anywhere in sight: 'There is no palpable ground of world-thrownness, only an ever-withdrawing and so concealed dynamics that transparently gifts it' (p. 1). Needs considerable unpacking, yes? However, like an abstract painter revealing his skill in photographic realism, in subsequent chapters he builds a case for his own undoing of metaphysics with bracingly clear summaries of other views that reveal his erudition, firm comprehension, and reader-friendly writing skills. Globus then proceeds to not only use these summaries as dynamic building blocks, but also to demonstrate their limitations and, in the process, the need for his deconstructive -- one might say surreal in its original sense -- insights.

Globus is better understood if one takes the time to delve deeply into almost any part of this little opus rather than attempting to get a swift overall impression. A short summary of the book's contents just would not do it justice. This should not be surprising, for Globus understands the visual universe, at least, as made manifest by the holographic principle, which means that a close study of any one of its parts will reveal the nature of the whole, and this is true of Globus's text, too. For example, by bringing 'revolutionary quantum theory to the brain,' Globus reveals that the brain is only computational, and, by implication, that consciousness cannot be a product of such computation: 'In place of computation on order, a plenum of implicate symmetry is proposed, with symmetry-breaking as trace (memory), and differentiation of the plenum into explicate concretions' (p. 3). Already we have Globus doing some symmetry-breaking of his own in this passage, bringing in diverse concepts, each from a field with its own symmetry or integrity and somewhat transforming each to make them fit into his boundary-breaking asymmetric complex system.

The plenum, philosophically speaking, is a concept probably originating in alchemy for the pregnant emptiness of nonbeing and used by mystics, visionaries and artists since. For a scientist, this pregnant emptiness most nearly infers to the quantum vacuum, as close to absolute nothingness as can be found in this universe, yet a nothingness 'pregnant' with the unthinkable potential energy of virtual particles. The plenum is suggested with slight variations by the implicate order of eccentric quantum physicist David Bohm (out of which enfolds the explicate order) or A.N. Whitehead's parallel ultimates of creativity and God in his primordial nature (out of which the occasions of experience, i.e., concretions, that are the world process emerge). Needless to say, Globus's 'explicate concretions' that differentiate the plenum into being combine Bohm and Whitehead, as well.

The key here, however, is the mention of memory trace, which I take to be a reference to be Derrida's (unconscious) trace of memory, which he later renamed the gift (probably to dissociate it from memory of the past). Globus anoints the power of first action to this notion of trace, for it is the blowtorch that breaks apart the quiescent symmetry of the plenum of nonbeing to throw each of us (individually but in parallel) into multifoliate being. This does not explain exactly how something emerges from nothing, but, at first sight, it seems to indicate that a cause-and-effect past lay behind the emergence of asymmetry, so it appears to fall into the logical error of eternal regression, for one must wonder what caused the asymmetry if a trace of that past cause is still present. However, anyone who is acquainted with Derrida knows the Derridean trace is of a past that has never been present; it is in fact much the same idea as the famous Derridean neologism différance, which implies a difference in space as well as an indefinite deferment of meaning in time.

This operation of difference that shadows presence is trace. All ideas and all objects of thought and perception bear the trace of other things, other moments, other presences. To bear the trace of other things is to be shadowed by alterity, which literally means 'otherness'. This notion of trace (or différance) further suggests the unexpected emergence of time and space awareness out of something absolutely other that may not, in itself, lack awareness in some unimaginable plenum-potential sense (say, awareness without content). The trace is not of the past, then, but of a undifferentiated origin that must remain unspeakable and unthinkable -- very much like the unexpected appearance of an asymmetry or singularity that leads to both space and time but is constituted within neither. At the same time (so to speak), a trace of the absolutely other of the plenum remains entangled within being, within spacetime (likely related to quantum superposition). Language is built in time; even using the word 'remains' indicates a holdover from the past, but this is not accurate. Instead, one might say in the postmodern sense, the trace is always already implicated in the here and now. What does this mean in everyday terms? It means being/asymmetry emerged or emerges spontaneously from the nonbeing/symmetry of the plenum -- and, moreover, is still doing so. The ongoing emergence of each existent requires that a place and a present (a space and a time, including a past and a future) come into being as well, creating a context for each existent. As I understand it, it is in this way that we find ourselves thrown into the particular contexts of being (dasein), which renew themselves during each moment of existence providing a sense of continuity to what is in actuality ongoing creation -- creation renewing itself each instant.

[Pardon me, Dr. Globus, if my interpretations are unrecognizable to you, but that's the nature of meaning in this universe of parallel independent minds: each reader creates the meaning of a text as much as or more than the author!]

This early mention of plenum is rarely repeated as Globus goes on, probably so the reader does not confuse this 'pregnant emptiness' with a metaphysical or transcendent background to the between-two out of which being arises. Instead any ultimate ground or background, Globus refers to the 'abground,' which literally means 'away from ground,' a term he has loosely taken from Heidegger. This does help the reader to sense this ground is not anything; it is in fact emptiness (as indicated), but it is pregnant with tension -- with the vast potential energy that is constantly produced at the dynamic point of creation between-two, but which is held in the state of potency by being reabsorbed into this abground (formerly known as the plenum)."

Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Transparent Becoming of World: A crossing between process philosophy and quantum neurophilosophy (Advances in Consciousness Research)
 
Last edited:
NeuroQuantology | March 2017 | Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Page 4-9 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2017.15.1.996 Globus G., A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution

"A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution to the Measurement Problem"
Gordon Globus

ABSTRACT Quantum Bayesianism makes conventional assumptions about conscious experience and the world, which are “deconstructed” here. Conscious experience is succeeded by Heideggerian Existenz as world-thrownness. But unlike Heidegger, Existenz is conceived as a monadological dis-closure in the other-tuned, self-tuned and pasttuned “between” of the quantum thermo field brain’s dual mode vacuum state. The wave function is identified with Bayesian expectation conceived as the brain’s “self-tuning” capability subject to informative modification. Physical reality is never worldly but quantum at all scales. Worlds are disclosed only in monadological parallel in the quantum brain’s tuned between. This version of Quantum Bayesianism offers a novel solution to the measurement problem.

Key Words: Quantum Bayesianism, Conscious experience, quantum thermo field, self-tuning, Physical reality DOI Number: 10.14704/nq.2017.15.1.996 NeuroQuantology 2017; 1: 4-9

PDF available at:

A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution to the Measurement Problem | Globus | NeuroQuantology
 
A much earlier book by Globus:

The Postmodern Brain (Advances in Consciousness Research) Paperback – May 18, 1995
by Gordon G. Globus


This is another important book edited by Globus, Pribram, and Vitiello, published by amazon's account in 2004. I thought it had been published earlier. In any case I remember copying it page for page from a library copy at Kinko's, and it is undoubtedly still packed away in a box somewhere around here. I read much of it then but it was beyond me at that point, and might still be.

Brain and Being: At the boundary between science, philosophy, language and arts (Advances in Consciousness Research)
by Gordon G. Globus (Editor), Karl H. Pribram (Editor), Giuseppe Vitiello (Editor)


ETA: for some reason the amazon links I attempt to set as live links here do not 'take'.
 
NeuroQuantology | March 2017 | Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Page 4-9 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2017.15.1.996 Globus G., A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution

"A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution to the Measurement Problem"
Gordon Globus

ABSTRACT Quantum Bayesianism makes conventional assumptions about conscious experience and the world, which are “deconstructed” here. Conscious experience is succeeded by Heideggerian Existenz as world-thrownness. But unlike Heidegger, Existenz is conceived as a monadological dis-closure in the other-tuned, self-tuned and pasttuned “between” of the quantum thermo field brain’s dual mode vacuum state. The wave function is identified with Bayesian expectation conceived as the brain’s “self-tuning” capability subject to informative modification. Physical reality is never worldly but quantum at all scales. Worlds are disclosed only in monadological parallel in the quantum brain’s tuned between. This version of Quantum Bayesianism offers a novel solution to the measurement problem.

Key Words: Quantum Bayesianism, Conscious experience, quantum thermo field, self-tuning, Physical reality DOI Number: 10.14704/nq.2017.15.1.996 NeuroQuantology 2017; 1: 4-9

PDF available at:

A Quantum Brain Version of the Quantum Bayesian Solution to the Measurement Problem | Globus | NeuroQuantology

Extract from the conclusion of the paper:

". . . vivid authentic dream life [is] at times indiscernable from the world of waking life.

The constitution of world-thrownness while dreaming uses the same model as for waking, with the exception that sensory stimuli are mostly blocked. However, there are what Freud termed “day residues,” charged sensory remainders from the immediately preceding day or two which retain some emotional significance and provide a rudimentary other-tuning. Meanwhile self-tuning is given free play (unconstrained during sleep by Bayesian feedback) and the full life-long library of memory traces are available. During the periodic activation of REM sleep, the rudimentary other-tuning, the Bayesian-freed self-tuning and the reservoir of past tuning interplay in the ground state. Then a matching process takes place in the between, a match resulting which is none other than dream world-disclosure. The difference between the world in waking and the world in dreaming is the mainly unmodulated (non-Bayesian) power of self-tuning in dreaming. Dreams are so revealing to the clinical dream interpreter precisely because they are expressions of the dreamer’s self-tuning of the between—a self-tuning that Freud showed to be wish-fulfilling—the self-tuning which is revealed when sensory other-tuning and so Bayesian mechanisms are disengaged during sleep. Dreaming existence, like waking existence, is between."

I think this short paper is a source we could all read and discuss. I've read it once and will do so again tonight. In the meantime, while I can follow Globus's thesis and reasoning, I'm presently unable to accept it fully. It seems to me that he misses the following:

the lived reality of human and animal intersubjectivity and integration with others we/they live among;

what we forge into sustained feeling in our loves, our loyalties, our intersubjectively developed sense of what is moral or ethical;

the compassion for the 'other' expressed early and late in protohuman and human interpersonal and social life [and in the early life of every human born] and expanding broadly, in human experience today, to extension of our concern to and for others elsewhere on this planet, and potentially to those living elsewhere in the universe;

and the philosophical sense and cognizance of what our 'being-there {which becomes here}-together' means, signifies, emotionally about how we should/must address the problems we've created in our 'world' that afflict the living.

Re his conception of dreams, I find it interesting that he brings the sense of ambiguity, of between-ness, inherent in temporal existence into the dreaming mind. But his notion of the meanings involved in memories (cropping up randomly in dreams in his view) fails to go deep into how we live our temporal lives with both conscious and unconscious senses of
the meanings embedded in our experiences and how we integrate these meanings at the time of experience x and at other, later times in our biographical existences along the way.
Globus is obviously a dyed in the wool Freudian, which is a limitation of considerable importance when set alongside the thinking of major psychologists and psychiatrists that follow Freud into our time. Anyway, maybe more about that later.
 
@Soupie

When I think of Idealism, I think that it means there is not an external, mind independent world - rather the world is mental and if that's so, then why is there inter-subjective agreement and even seeming agreement about the world from vastly different species - we can understand the behavior of the "meanest" of organisms, even single cells and less complicated structures like viruses in the same terms we understand the world - ? In other words, Idealism means the world is a psychic construct and if so, how did "we" arrive at the world we have (and, for that matter, how did "we" arrive, why is there more than one mind?), rather than a world like that in our imaginations and in our dreams? A mercurial, ever changing reality? Positing a real, external world that we can get some (imperfect) grip on ... seems more parsimonious for that bit - now, getting the mental into it, is tricky ...
Chalmers addresses this in the paper of his I linked earlier. Versions of idealism which don't deny an external, mind-independent world (at least, from the perspective of macro minds such as ours) are considered reaslist idealism. From the perspective of a macro mind, the cosmic mind would their external reality.

How could macro minds exist within a cosmic mind? Although our macro minds seem "mercurial, ever changing reality" they still--many would argue--obey the laws of physics (and whatever underlies physics). So, even though this cosmic mind may also be mercurial and ever changing--it's easy to easy that indeed the universe in which we find ourselves is mercurial, ever changing. On this view, of course, there is an identity between the cosmic mind and the universe, they are one and the same.

Having said all that, my flavor of realist idealim is agnostic on whether external reality constitutes a cosmic mind. I would tend to believe it does not; if it does constitute a mind, I would tend to think it is very different from our minds.

What I am trying to pick out with realist idealism is the idea that our minds and the universe consist of the same substrate.

Protoconsciousness ... compare this to proto-materialism? We don't have proto-matter, we have quarks and particles, and although we might not a priori know what happens when we combine Os and Hs, the result is physical, a molecule ... Chalmers has argued that consciousness is the only case of "strong emergence" and that's a problem ... but as I understand your attraction to your view, it is that consciousness is already there, so doesn't need an explanation (like matter is for a materialist) ... but it seems you complicate that when you resort to proto-consciousness, because the whole thing is getting the problematic stuff (consciousness) IN ... so if proto-consciousness isn't consciousness, how do you solve the hard problem of proto-consciousness? How do you go from proto-consciousness to full blown consciousness? The tiniest gap in proto-consciousness and consciousness is a yawning chasm ...

But if proto-consciousness has all the qualities of consciousness, it's not proto-anything.
Once again the confusion of terms. What I am trying to pick out with the term "proto-consciousness" is the substrate of which, on this view, our minds and the universe are made. The intrinsic nature of matter, perhaps. Previously, I tried to use the term "experience" which also created confusion. (Prior to that, I used the term Noumena, but this too created confusion.) How about I use the term INM meaning "the intrinsic nature of matter." By this I mean to pick out the substrate underlying the process/object that exists in external reality when we perceive, say, a flower in front of our face. We can debate to what extent our perception of the flower is veridical in relation to the actual flower, but what we do know is that they are not identical. (That is, if we assume that there really is a reality external to our brain/minds.)

The problem with assuming, then, that all of reality consists of this ISM substrate, and that this substrate constitutes all of physical reality and our conscious minds, is that we still have a problem of some bits of this INM being conscious and some being unconscious. We've just kicked the can down the road, right?

And so what you are saying is that this problem is no different than the Hard Problem. But I disagree. The HP is going from matter to consciousness. That is, if we start with unconscious matter, we can't get to consciousness or even conscious matter.

But I'm not starting with unconscious matter. I'm starting with the intrinsic nature of (that which we perceive as) matter. The problem of going from INM to consciousness is not the same as going from unconscious matter to consciousness.

(You noted that my view sounds more like Neutral Monism and you may be right. I don't have a good grip on NM though, so I am reluctant to say either way. I think my view is subtely different, and I think I may touch on why later.)

On this view, all of reality consists of INM. But not all INM processes are conscious processes. (For instance, subjectively, most people report losing consciousness under anethesia and regaining it when the anethesia wears off. This is not only a problem for materialists but idealists as well. If everything is made of consciousness, how can it go away and return?

We cannot directly perceive the intrinsic nature of matter; this is due to the nature of perception, which is inferential. However, when we perceive the INM via inferential perception, we see (i.e., experience) matter. When we perceive someone's mind, we have the experience of seeing a brain.

What Is Consciousness?

"More illuminating are two clinical sources of causal evidence: electrical stimulation of cortical tissue and the study of patients following the loss of specific regions caused by injury or disease. Before removing a brain tumor or the locus of a patient’s epileptic seizures, for example, neurosurgeons map the functions of nearby cortical tissue by directly stimulating it with electrodes. Stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings. These could be flashes of light, geometric shapes, distortions of faces, auditory or visual hallucinations, a feeling of familiarity or unreality, the urge to move a specific limb, and so on. Stimulating the front of the cortex is a different matter: by and large, it elicits no direct experience.

A second source of insights are neurological patients from the first half of the 20th century. Surgeons sometimes had to excise a large belt of prefrontal cortex to remove tumors or to ameliorate epileptic seizures. What is remarkable is how unremarkable these patients appeared. The loss of a portion of the frontal lobe did have certain deleterious effects: the patients developed a lack of inhibition of inappropriate emotions or actions, motor deficits, or uncontrollable repetition of specific action or words. Following the operation, however, their personality and IQ improved, and they went on to live for many more years, with no evidence that the drastic removal of frontal tissue significantly affected their conscious experience. Conversely, removal of even small regions of the posterior cortex, where the hot zone resides, can lead to a loss of entire classes of conscious content: patients are unable to recognize faces or to see motion, color or space.

So it appears that the sights, sounds and other sensations of life as we experience it are generated by regions within the posterior cortex. As far as we can tell, almost all conscious experiences have their origin there. What is the crucial difference between these posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content? The truth is that we do not know. Even so—and excitingly—a recent finding indicates that neuroscientists may be getting closer."

Please don't misread what I am writing (@smcder, I don't think you will.) I'm not suggesting that all our plethora of wonderful experiences just are this small region of brain. What I am suggesting is maybe more radical and hard to fathom: that we perceive our plethora of wonderful experiences to be this small region of matter. But it's not really.

I'm also not saying that an external, mind-indepent, "physical" world doesn't exist.

What!?

Experiences without a subject ... ok, all I ask is for some coherent talk about that ... experiences are defined in terms of a subject, and a subject is what has experiences ...
Let's just set this matter to the side for a moment. I've said that I don't fully grok the concept of a subject. Is it meant a physical subject? A phenomenal subject? I'm not arguing that experiences like what it's like to smoke a cigar are just rippling through the cosmos disembodied. I would say that the complexity of the conscious experience roughly covaries with it's perceived complexity. That is to say, a complex experience would be perceived as a complex physical system.

... this is where Strawson and Russell's view runs out of answers, I think Strawson is right, we don't know anything about matter that precludes it from being consciousness, but we sure don't know what about it might clude it ... and so it's not yet conclusive ... and you have to go from some kind of "instrinsic" nature to actual subjects having experiences - and it seems like the physical structure plays a role in having those experiences, but what is the relationship of the structure of the "intrinsic" to the structure of the "extrinsic"? we think brains have something to do with it - but different kinds of brains, different extrinsic structures ....

Homolog of mammalian neocortex found in bird brain

seem to both have experiences ... intrinsic qualities that are similar ... if so, what selects for both extrinsic and intrinsic structures? Is experience a lucky result of organizing into brains? If so, why does it seem to match up with the other qualities of the brain and directly affect (and more importantly, effect them?)
Above I said that on this view, a physical, mind-independent world does exist. What I mean, then, by that is the INM does have a mind-independent structure. It does interact and differentiate. Structure, interaction, and differentiation can be thought of as "physical" properties.

What I would, and have said, is that the structure, interaction, and differentiation we perceive in the world is infered from the real structure, interaction, and differentiation of the INM. Consider the different pictures of the world given to us by classical physics and quantum physics. Although we would argue that quantum physics gets us closer to the real nature that is INM, it's still an inferential model. So while our models are imperfect, I think we have grounds via physics and phenomenology to say that the INM has the properties of differentiation, interaction, and sructure.

So how do we go from unconscious INM processes to conscious INM processes? I do think a certain spatiotemporal structure is necessary. For instance, a certain spatiotemporal structure that we would perceive to be a living brain. But as we know, via materialism, spatiotemporal structure is not enough. I think that INM is a quality which takes on different flavors (qualia) which covary with various (intinsic) spatiotemporal structure state-spaces.

I think a good candidate qualia that is the difference that makes a difference is the qualia of I-ness. Whereas objectively we would ask: what is the difference between a conscious brain region and an unconscious brain region? Objectively, we can't answer that.

Subjectively/intinsically, we could ask, what is the difference between a conscious qualia-state and an unconscious qualia-state? I think it is the quality of I-ness; It is the difference between the qualia-state of "green" and "I am seeing green."

So is conscious awareness epiphenomenal? No, not at all. Organisms must be able to predict and model their environments and themselves. Therefore, spatiotemporal structures that give rise to experiential qualia-states such as "I am seeing green and will soon see red" will be selected for.
 
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THE PHILOSOPHER’S GAZE: MODERNITY IN THE SHADOWS OF ENLIGHTENMENT, DAVID MICHAEL LEVIN, at The Philosopher's Gaze

{note, re Levin’s critique of MP, and that of Levinas, see http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/symposium/files/original/b74874d0216e448896d5d3e74485595a.PDF}

SEP, M-P: “Merleau-Ponty argues that the basic level of perceptual experience is the gestalt, the meaningful whole of figure against ground, and that the indeterminate and contextual aspects of the perceived world are positive phenomenon that cannot be eliminated from a complete account. Sensing, in contrast with knowing, is a “living communication with the world that makes it present to us as the familiar place of our life” (PP: 79/53), investing the perceived world with meanings and values that refer essentially to our bodies and lives. We forget this “phenomenal field”, the world as it appears directly to perception, as a consequence of perception’s own tendency to forget itself in favor of the perceived that it discloses. Perception orients itself toward the truth, placing its faith in the eventual convergence of perspectives and progressive determination of what was previously indeterminate. But it thereby naturally projects a completed and invariant “truth in itself” as its goal. Science extends and amplified this natural tendency through increasingly precise measurements of the invariants in perception, leading eventually to the theoretical construction of an objective world of determinate things. Once this determinism of the “in itself” is extended universally and applied even to the body and the perceptual relation itself, then its ongoing dependence on the “originary faith” of perception is obscured; perception is reduced to “confused appearances” that require methodical reinterpretation, and the eventual result is dualism, solipsism, and skepticism. The “fundamental philosophical act” would therefore be to “return to the lived world beneath the objective world” (PP: 83/57). This requires a transcendental reduction: a reversal of perception’s natural tendency to cover its own tracks and a bracketing of our unquestioned belief in the objective world. Yet this cannot be a recourse to any transcendental consciousness that looks on the world from outside and is not itself emergent from and conditioned by the phenomenal field. Rather than a transcendental ego, Merleau-Ponty speaks of a “transcendental field”, emphasizing that reflection always has a situated and partial perspective as a consequence of being located within the field on which it reflects."

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
 
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^Forgot to mention that the former SEP article on Merleau-Ponty has been replaced in the last two years by a much more informative article by Ted Toadvine, whose philosophy papers I've linked here in the past. In addition to Toadvine's insights into phenomenology and MP's work in particular, he also begins by locating both in the contexts of the modern critical history of ideas.
 
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