Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[Pharoah]

@Soupie

6 & 8 don't address the hard problem either.

You describe

@smcder
"you describe"? What do you mean?

Given that extensive comments on this forum concerning the hard problem couldn't determine what it was, I fail to see how you can be so sure it doesn't. Furthermore, I don't actually claim that 6 & 8 solve the hard problem—because of the ambiguity of interpretation.
Perhaps it would be more productive to think in terms of what HCT does explain rather than what it does not.

I do intend to ask TN what he thinks...

 

[smcder]

@smcder
"you describe"? What do you mean?

Given that extensive comments on this forum concerning the hard problem couldn't determine what it was, I fail to see how you can be so sure it doesn't. Furthermore, I don't actually claim that 6 & 8 solve the hard problem—because of the ambiguity of interpretation.
Perhaps it would be more productive to think in terms of what HCT does explain rather than what it does not.

I do intend to ask TN what he thinks...

I edited the post, have a look now. Let us know what Nagel says - right now, I feel like I am and @Soupie and @Constance are pretty clear on the hard problem and that it's not that ambiguous as Nagel and Chalmers lay it out.

But they can respond it they feel differently.

Again, I am rooting for you to have solved it, but right now I don't see it.

 

[Soupie]

@Pharoah said: If you recall, I don't mention red, green, or blue until the end of section 4. Most of section 4 refers to THz.​

@Soupie: Hm, I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life until you have reached the point in your explanation/description where you are prepared to discuss the physiological processes which generate, give rise to, or harness phenomenal qualities.

Pharoah said: Note footnote #2:

"That these objects reflect light in these frequencies is objectively the case, whilst the frequencies attributed to them are a correlative concept that humans have determined by associating spectral frequencies (quantified oscillations per assigned incremental measures of time) with the particular qualitative experiential characteristics of colours."​

Soupie: The reflection of light by objects and the spectral frequencies of the reflected light are both “objective side” properties. That is, we can objectively measure such stimuli.

The “particular qualitative, experiential characteristics of colours” are “subjective side” properties. What these phenomenal properties are, where they “come from,” and why they are associated with various physical stimuli is the question. It is the Hard Problem.

As far as I can see, your account of the evolution of consciousness (phenomenal experience) does not explain the what, where, or why of phenomenal experience. Indeed, from what I can gather, your account doesn’t even attempt to do so.

Pharoah said: The phenomenal nature of colour is dealt with in parts 6 and 8 not in section 4. Section 4 tells us that colours are represented physiologically because they are qualitatively relevant and that this representation evinces subtle evocations of attention, focus, mood and other such things.​

Soupie: Pharoah, colors simply cannot be represented physiologically.

What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies. Colors are something else altogether.

Again, you have not explained what colors are, where they come from, nor why specific (physical) stimuli have specific (phenomenal) colors associated with them.

I would argue that unless these questions are answered, an explanation of consciousness has not been provided.

 

[smcder]

As an English speaker growing up in a Germanic household and having read most of Hesse before I finished second year university I have to say I have always favored endpoints. Where things start and end are critical for me. So is saying things out loud, as that alters meaning in ways that appear to be limited, as if what you imagine to say contains all these other emotions and intentions that might not necessarily have specific or known words attached to them. Dewdney told me that was a failure of not knowing enough words.

Poetry on the other hand creates fields of meanings, and looks for multiplicity of concepts and ideas so that language becomes layered the way that memory is also stratified by our own personal geology of events. This kind of heightened language that situates phrases of meanings alongside constructed images through metaphor is a kind of apex of consciousness, as if something beyond words is being named, something my consciousness acknowledges but can not always translate.

Re: reconstructing consciousness
Most people who commute do so in the fairly automatic state of the automaton. At what point in the accident do I suddenly wake up out of a default auto pilot mode to notice the details and order of what really took place? I think that's probably impossible to negotiate and much of our life is like how the Quebecois feminist writers describe it, "the soul winks on, winks off." and I f I have to tell you the narrative of the day's events it will be a fabricated summary except for the parts that I was studying closely each step along the way. This could be quite mundane material, but for whatever reason the events were recorded 'accurately.'

Language offers me the opportunity to then negotiate the meaning I want to create, or that I imagined and this can happen as smcder said, by talking with other people, inventing your own code, writing in neologisms or in simply crafting the meaning of what you want to feel the way a poet would. Making images does this even better, so film then captures the experience of consciousness by being able to do what we do readily when we remember: it edits and manipulates time into a memory poem. Reality works this way.

And I can see how people who share codes of meaning together in communities freely invent languages according to the events & processes that are important to them. They make their poems and images of self expression too.

Aber du bist in einem brennenden zustand, sicher! Sprichst du den Deutsche? Das wird tolle - tierische geil mann ... warum hast du nicht gesagt? Auf nicht dicke Hose machen??

 

[smcder]

What I said in my last two posts falls short of addressing the 'epistemic ambiguity' Steve referred to. I think my few comments above do apply to 'normal experience' of most humans most of the time, but there are dramatic exceptions to such experience that include OBEs, cases of multiple personality, and other forms of psychological 'dissociation' including cases of amnesia.

OBEs have been investigated in detail in the last several decades and I've located the link to the whole of the paper I referred to a day or two ago which reports on significant discoveries and distinctions in OBE phenomena: Glenn Carruthers, "Who am I in Out of Body Experience: Implications from OBES for the explanadum of a theory of self-consciousness in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences."

https://www.academia.edu/4097980/_in_press_Who_am_I_in_Out_of_Body_Experience_Implications_from_OBEs_for_the_explanandum_of_a_theory_of_self-consciousness_in_Phenomenology_and_the_Cognitive_Sciences

I hope we can discuss the distinctions developed in the study of OBEs provided in this paper for they do demonstrate radical epistemic ambiguity in 'selfhood'.

This is an interesting article:
In this section I argue that this ‘double self consciousness’ implication of OBEs rests on too simple a reading of subjects reports. The reason for this is twofold. First, subjects frequently experience not one, but two bodies during an OBE with the subject seeming to be embodied in the second body. A majority of OBEs cannot be characterised as an apparent spatial separation between subject and body.

In the final section I propose a tripartite distinction between the experience of

1. being a subject (sense of subjectivity),

2. the sense of being an embodied subject(the sense of embodiment)

3. and the sense of ownership over a body

and use this to redescribe the aspects of self-consciousness altered in OBEs. Second, by considering reports of heautoscopy and not just classic OBEs we see that feelings of self-identification are not necessarily tied to the self as a mental entity or sense of subjectivity.

In the final section I again apply the distinction between the sense of embodiment and sense of subjectivity to describe these cases. I conclude that OBEs suggest that there are three forms of self-consciousness, not two, which need to be explained.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
"
6 & 8 don't seem to me to address the hard problem either. What you are describing is well understood by those who posit that there is a hard problem, they just point out that that

"there is something it it like to be"

doesn't seem necessary to the processes. If I understand you, you would claim that it is necessary - but you don't explain why.
"To possess phenomenal experience is ‘to assimilate and evaluate, and thereby to understand the qualitative relevancy of environmental experience’."

But the near reverse:

"to assimilate and evaluate, and thereby to assess the relevancy of environmental experience" does not imply "phenomenal experience"

again - strike the zombie, imagine a very advanced Mars rover that can do everything that say a dog can do ... but is organized along tranditonal computer lines, but with much more horsepower, we would not say there is something it is like to be that rover.

"I am not going to speculate how a qualitative assimilation might be cross-referenced or compared with another nor how neural networks institute organisational hierarchies, but few would doubt that they somehow do and am content to leave this research programme to the neuroscientists."

Few may ever doubt it - and it may be so ... but cross-referencing or comparing, or showing how neural networks institute oranisational hierarchies does not show that it's a "qualitative" assimilation.

@smcder
I do explain why it is necessarily so (there is something it is like), and
And I do intimate why a complex Mars rover would not—that qualitative representation is beyond computation alone.

@Pharoah said: If you recall, I don't mention red, green, or blue until the end of section 4. Most of section 4 refers to THz.​

@Soupie: Hm, I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life until you have reached the point in your explanation/description where you are prepared to discuss the physiological processes which generate, give rise to, or harness phenomenal qualities.

Pharoah said: Note footnote #2:

"That these objects reflect light in these frequencies is objectively the case, whilst the frequencies attributed to them are a correlative concept that humans have determined by associating spectral frequencies (quantified oscillations per assigned incremental measures of time) with the particular qualitative experiential characteristics of colours."​

Soupie: The reflection of light by objects and the spectral frequencies of the reflected light are both “objective side” properties. That is, we can objectively measure such stimuli.

The “particular qualitative, experiential characteristics of colours” are “subjective side” properties. What these phenomenal properties are, where they “come from,” and why they are associated with various physical stimuli is the question. It is the Hard Problem.

As far as I can see, your account of the evolution of consciousness (phenomenal experience) does not explain the what, where, or why of phenomenal experience. Indeed, from what I can gather, your account doesn’t even attempt to do so.

Pharoah said: The phenomenal nature of colour is dealt with in parts 6 and 8 not in section 4. Section 4 tells us that colours are represented physiologically because they are qualitatively relevant and that this representation evinces subtle evocations of attention, focus, mood and other such things.​

Soupie: Pharoah, colors simply cannot be represented physiologically.

What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies. Colors are something else altogether.

Again, you have not explained what colors are, where they come from, nor why specific (physical) stimuli have specific (phenomenal) colors associated with them.

I would argue that unless these questions are answered, an explanation of consciousness has not been provided.

@Soupie
"I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life" - fair comment and I have considered it. I can't say what the physiological processes in intimate detail because I am not God.

"The reflection of light by objects and the spectral frequencies of the reflected light are both “objective side” properties" - With my footnote, I am trying to point out that these "objective" properties only have frequencies because mankind have created a concept of number and time to refer to something as having frequency. Technically, THz reflection is a conceptual representation and still lies on the subjective side although we rightly feel pretty confident (being realists) that there is objective truth in this. So... no this is not the case: "What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies." (Soupie)[incidentally, this is exactly the same mistake Tye makes in his Ten Problems of Consciousness.]
The phenomenal experience of colour is a different kind of non-conceptual representation. I have reached some agreement I think with you @Soupie (and possibly @smcder), that physiological mechanisms do represent colour in a qualitatively relevant way. The stumbling block is how these qualitative physiologies are then taken by cognitive mechanisms to generate phenomenal content. I do think I have explained why fairly well in the paper... not well enough no doubt.

"What, where and why?" - why? yes I have. Where?... the brain and body... what? What?!

"Again, you have not explained what colors are, where they come from, nor why specific (physical) stimuli have specific (phenomenal) colors associated with them."
I have explained what colors are... from a realist stance they are worldly characteristics that have observer-dependent qualitative relevancies (thanks to the evolution of lifeforms)
Where colors come from is not part of the remit of the paper, but is a fascinating question that I am happy to discuss at length.
Not sure about the last bit... what you want...

Whilst I love the criticism, I do think that it is undeniably a strong theory. This is particularly the case given that it is all extrapolated from a very simple unified concept. Personally, I think you should try to reverse your method of analysis and think, 'how could this account for phenomenal experience?', 'what can this theory tell us of the nature of phenomenal experience?'. Wishful thinking perhaps...

 

[smcder]

@smcder
I do explain why it is necessarily so (there is something it is like), and
And I do intimate why a complex Mars rover would not—that qualitative representation is beyond computation alone.



@Soupie
"I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life" - fair comment and I have considered it. I can't say what the physiological processes in intimate detail because I am not God.

"The reflection of light by objects and the spectral frequencies of the reflected light are both “objective side” properties" - With my footnote, I am trying to point out that these "objective" properties only have frequencies because mankind have created a concept of number and time to refer to something as having frequency. Technically, THz reflection is a conceptual representation and still lies on the subjective side although we rightly feel pretty confident (being realists) that there is objective truth in this. So... no this is not the case: "What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies." (Soupie)[incidentally, this is exactly the same mistake Tye makes in his Ten Problems of Consciousness.]
The phenomenal experience of colour is a different kind of non-conceptual representation. I have reached some agreement I think with you @Soupie (and possibly @smcder), that physiological mechanisms do represent colour in a qualitatively relevant way. The stumbling block is how these qualitative physiologies are then taken by cognitive mechanisms to generate phenomenal content. I do think I have explained why fairly well in the paper... not well enough no doubt.

"What, where and why?" - why? yes I have. Where?... the brain and body... what? What?!

"Again, you have not explained what colors are, where they come from, nor why specific (physical) stimuli have specific (phenomenal) colors associated with them."
I have explained what colors are... from a realist stance they are worldly characteristics that have observer-dependent qualitative relevancies (thanks to the evolution of lifeforms)
Where colors come from is not part of the remit of the paper, but is a fascinating question that I am happy to discuss at length.
Not sure about the last bit... what you want...

Whilst I love the criticism, I do think that it is undeniably a strong theory. This is particularly the case given that it is all extrapolated from a very simple unified concept. Personally, I think you should try to reverse your method of analysis and think, 'how could this account for phenomenal experience?', 'what can this theory tell us of the nature of phenomenal experience?'. Wishful thinking perhaps...

Well, I just don't see it ... I'll be interested to hear what Nagel says.

@Soupie - does this answer your questions? It seems to me your critique still stands ... or are we wrong?

 

[smcder]

Appreciate it as humor

 

[smcder]

Gone for a couple days - look forward to catching up when I get back.

 

[Soupie]

@Pharoah said: "I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life" - fair comment and I have considered it. I can't say what the physiological processes in intimate detail because I am not God.​

@Soupie: If phenomenal qualities arise or are generated by physiological processes, biologists/neurologists will--as technology allows--be able to describe them in intimate detail. Omniscience would not be required.

Pharoah said: Technically, THz reflection is a conceptual representation and still lies on the subjective side although we rightly feel pretty confident (being realists) that there is objective truth in this.​

Soupie: I disagree. THz, or terahertz, refers to the oscillation/movement of electromagentic waves through space. The movement of electromagnetic waves is objective.

Pharoah said: [T]his is not the case: "What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies." …


The phenomenal experience of colour is a different kind of non-conceptual representation. I have reached some agreement I think with you @Soupie ..., that physiological mechanisms do represent colour in a qualitatively relevant way.​

Soupie: Pharoah, let’s clarify what you are saying. We have three (3) variables here:

1. A physical stimulus (electromagnetic wave) = X
   
   
2. A physiological mechanism (chemical reaction) = X1
   
   
3. A phenomenal experience (blue) = X2

You appear to be making two claims:

1. If X is good for organism, then organism will evolve X1 that represents X.
   
   
2. X1 will represent X2.

The problem with claim I. is that it doesn’t tell us anything about X2. It doesn’t tell us what color is, where it comes from, or why it exists (what’s its function).


The problem with claim II. is that, again, you haven’t explained what X2 is, where it came from, or why it exists.


A physiological mechanism might represent a physical stimulus. But it does not follow that a physiological mechanism will represent a phenomenal quality.


Where does this phenomenal quality exist that there may be a physiological mechanism that might represent it?


Does blue exist out in space? You’ve said no, phenomenal qualities are observer dependant and that they exist in the body/brain.


Perhaps what you mean to say is:


If X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve X1, and from X1 will emerge X2.


That is, if electromagnetic wave X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve representational physiological mechanism X1, and from physiological mechanism X1 will emerge the phenomenal quality blue X2.


The problem with the above scenario is that it does not tell us what blue is, where it came from, nor why it exists.

Pharoah: I do think I have explained why fairly well in the paper... not well enough no doubt.


… why? yes I have.


Where?... the brain and body…


what? What?!​

Soupie: I’m sorry, I don’t see why on your description phenomenal qualities exist. It seems that physiological mechanics carry the load.


It’s clear that you believe physiological mechanisms and phenomenal qualities are intimately related. I don’t disagree. However, you have not explained how nor why they are related.

What are colors? Are they physical, phenomenal, or something else?

Pharoah: I have explained what colors are... from a realist stance they are worldly characteristics that have observer-dependent qualitative relevancies (thanks to the evolution of lifeforms)...​

Soupie: You say colors are “worldy” characteristics. Are colors physical or phenomenal characteristics?

As to what your theory has to offer-- as @smcder noted some time ago--I don't see what it offers beyond the standard theory of evolution via natural selection. And so far as I can tell, it doesn't explain the origin, evolution, or function of consciousness.

 

[Burnt State]

Aber du bist in einem brennenden zustand, sicher! Sprichst du den Deutsche? Das wird tolle - tierische geil mann ... warum hast du nicht gesagt? Auf nicht dicke Hose machen??

Wenn ich die Sprache meines Vaters sprechen, ich würde nicht einen Übersetzer dazu benutzen, Sie verstehen. Als geile Tier Mann, ich kann nur sagen, dass, wenn ich die Worte laufen i Grunzen und Stöhnen in Ekstase.

 

[Pharoah]

@smcder:
"What we are looking for is an explanation of why there should be a subjective sense, a what it is like in the first place - why didn't something like a Mars rover evolve that isn't conscious ... you haven't convinced me that that's needed to do the comparisons and evaluations you discuss ... those can be done (in fact mostly are done subconsciously - it's not even clear that any given human thinking requires consciousness) ... you only posit that since there is phenomenal experience then consciousness has to evolve ... but that's a "just so" story ... it doesn't say why there is phenomenal experience in the first place - @@Soupie's question too, if I understand."

In this paragraph, I do see that you need more from me, but I am not sure what more you are needing. It is a shame you have gone away for a couple of days. I will work on the paper to try and clarify where I think steps are missing:

I think your query, or doubt, has something to do with the evolutionary stages and why they necessarily follow the course that they do... why phenomenal consciousness requires the earlier stages of evolutionary development to be in place. Why there must be a hierarchical order. Why there should be phenomenal consciousness at all...

One of the things that it is difficult to imagine, is the difference between one's own conceptual introspections about phenomenal consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness as it might be experienced in the total absence of conceptual introspection. Most of the paper is pre-conceptual in explanation. As an analyst of its validity or otherwise, you (smcder) are approaching the concept of phenomenal consciousness from the human conceptual stance. In order to see more clearly what I am explaining, one must try to imagine consciousness and its experiential content in a manner that is devoid of critical thinking: if a cat sees a tree, it barely thinks for the lack of the tree's relevance to its existence... its mind is largely empty to all but the immediacy of its "affective valencies" (to borrow from Panksepp). That is its phenomenal and qualitative experience. A cat's inclinations are far more limited for the lack of conceptual awareness, and an explanation of phenomenal consciousness need explain only that much, not the nature of your thinking about it.
When you and @Soupie are asking these questions, I feel you are wanting to understand your human conceptual take on what it is about living as a human that is phenomenally conscious. It is a fair question and it is difficult for me articulate these subtle distinctions.

It is worth pointing out that philosophical orthodoxy has it that plants and animals are not, or do not possess representational content, are not informational, have no bearing on knowledge. All of these standard positions are radically exposed as false in the paper. The paper provides a strong argument that computation is insufficient at generating consciousness, irrespective of its sophistication—another highly contentious claim. Nagel states that an integrated objective/subjective bridge will not be achievable for centuries. So perhaps we should not ask too much more of this 8000 word paper.

You say
"So arent you just saying you have explained how the brain takes input from the senses and turns it into phenomenal experiences?"
My exposition is not so much how. To explain how cognitive mechanisms cause x,y,z is well beyond my theoretic capabilities... I think how is largely an empirical question? I do think that I am fundamentally addressing the why question and trying to give a bit of how along the way to add credence to the neural correlate questions.

Thanks for the positive input from all... it is all very helpful

 

[Pharoah]

@Pharoah said: "I would suggest not mentioning phenomenal qualities in your overall explanation/description of the evolution of life" - fair comment and I have considered it. I can't say what the physiological processes in intimate detail because I am not God.​

@Soupie: If phenomenal qualities arise or are generated by physiological processes, biologists/neurologists will--as technology allows--be able to describe them in intimate detail. Omniscience would not be required.

Pharoah said: Technically, THz reflection is a conceptual representation and still lies on the subjective side although we rightly feel pretty confident (being realists) that there is objective truth in this.​

Soupie: I disagree. THz, or terahertz, refers to the oscillation/movement of electromagentic waves through space. The movement of electromagnetic waves is objective.

Pharoah said: [T]his is not the case: "What can be represented physiologically are particle/wave frequencies." …


The phenomenal experience of colour is a different kind of non-conceptual representation. I have reached some agreement I think with you @Soupie ..., that physiological mechanisms do represent colour in a qualitatively relevant way.​

Soupie: Pharoah, let’s clarify what you are saying. We have three (3) variables here:

1. A physical stimulus (electromagnetic wave) = X
   
   
2. A physiological mechanism (chemical reaction) = X1
   
   
3. A phenomenal experience (blue) = X2

You appear to be making two claims:

1. If X is good for organism, then organism will evolve X1 that represents X.
   
   
2. X1 will represent X2.

The problem with claim I. is that it doesn’t tell us anything about X2. It doesn’t tell us what color is, where it comes from, or why it exists (what’s its function).


The problem with claim II. is that, again, you haven’t explained what X2 is, where it came from, or why it exists.


A physiological mechanism might represent a physical stimulus. But it does not follow that a physiological mechanism will represent a phenomenal quality.


Where does this phenomenal quality exist that there may be a physiological mechanism that might represent it?


Does blue exist out in space? You’ve said no, phenomenal qualities are observer dependant and that they exist in the body/brain.


Perhaps what you mean to say is:


If X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve X1, and from X1 will emerge X2.


That is, if electromagnetic wave X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve representational physiological mechanism X1, and from physiological mechanism X1 will emerge the phenomenal quality blue X2.


The problem with the above scenario is that it does not tell us what blue is, where it came from, nor why it exists.

Pharoah: I do think I have explained why fairly well in the paper... not well enough no doubt.


… why? yes I have.


Where?... the brain and body…


what? What?!​

Soupie: I’m sorry, I don’t see why on your description phenomenal qualities exist. It seems that physiological mechanics carry the load.


It’s clear that you believe physiological mechanisms and phenomenal qualities are intimately related. I don’t disagree. However, you have not explained how nor why they are related.

What are colors? Are they physical, phenomenal, or something else?

Pharoah: I have explained what colors are... from a realist stance they are worldly characteristics that have observer-dependent qualitative relevancies (thanks to the evolution of lifeforms)...​

Soupie: You say colors are “worldy” characteristics. Are colors physical or phenomenal characteristics?

As to what your theory has to offer-- as @smcder noted some time ago--I don't see what it offers beyond the standard theory of evolution via natural selection. And so far as I can tell, it doesn't explain the origin, evolution, or function of consciousness.

1. "Soupie: I disagree. THz, or terahertz, refers to the oscillation/movement of electromagentic waves through space. The movement of electromagnetic waves is objective."
Yes the electromagnetic waves are objective, but their measurement (cycles per second) is conceptual i.e., the number of cycles, and the seconds are both human concepts. Look at the history of the measurement of time and the measurement of distance as examples of the evolution of the concept of nearly absolute values.

2. "X1 will represent X2." - No.
"A physiological mechanism might represent a physical stimulus. But it does not follow that a physiological mechanism will represent a phenomenal quality." - I agree
"If X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve X1, and from X1,"... [correction] it is possible for X2 to emerge with the requisite cognitive mechanisms.

3. "It’s clear that you believe physiological mechanisms and phenomenal qualities are intimately related. I don’t disagree. However, you have not explained how nor why they are related." - fair comment. I will endeavour to address this. Thanks.

4. "What are colors? Are they physical, phenomenal, or something else?"
I was wrong to describe colors as worldly characteristics. Why? because to use the term 'color' is to ascribe certain phenomenal characteristics to it. But of course, those characteristics do not exist without the organism.
So, what are colours?
The answer comes down to 'representation' and to information you might be glad to hear.
The physical is inclusively a representational ontology (I think this is the right way of putting it). We can never know what the intrinsic nature of reality is (as per B Russell). Physicality is defined by interaction (i.e. without interaction there is no evidence of the physical—think of dark matter as an example: it must exist because spiral galaxies behave as if it does). As I have expressed to you by email, the conditions following interaction must represent, in some manner, the nature of the conditions prior to interaction. This is how one can say that post-interactive conditions are informed by the nature of the interaction which is determined by pre-interactive conditions (there has to be a non-random relation for the universe to exist physically).
This is an abstract way of saying that there is ultimately representation in why and how matter exists.
Evolution ensures that there are different classes of representation.
electromagnetic waves are, at base, one class of physical representation.
physiologies provide another class of representation, whereby electromagnetic waves may be qualitatively relevant to a species' survival.
phenomenal experience is a third class of representation of electromagnetic waves that are qualitatively relevant, but individual specific, changing in flavour from moment to the next (actually, stare at a wall for long enough and the experience changes ie. phenomenal experience is time dependent even when it feels stable and the same).
The fourth class of representation for electromagnetic waves is conceptual. Electromagnetic waves can be measured as cycles per second, the value of which correlates with our phenomenal experiences of them, which have the flavours they have as per their qualitative relevance.

So, what are colors? The answer depends on what class of representation one is looking to.

 

[Soupie]

2. "If X is good for the organism, then organism will evolve X1, and from X1,"... [correction] it is possible for X2 to emerge with the requisite cognitive mechanisms.

Ah, ok. Cognitive mechanisms. I would like to hear more about these.

So phenomenal qualities (colors, smells, tastes, affects, etc.) require physical stimuli, physiological mechanisms, and cognitive mechanisms to "emerge?"

3. "It’s clear that you believe physiological mechanisms and phenomenal qualities are intimately related. I don’t disagree. However, you have not explained how nor why they are related." - fair comment. I will endeavour to address this. Thanks.

As I understand it, there are at least two main aspects that need explaining: (1) How do non-physical, phenomenal characteristics emerge from physical causes/processes, and (2) how do non-physical, phenomenal characteristics have causal influence on the physical?

Perhaps you don't view phenomenal qualities as non-physical qualities.

4. "What are colors? Are they physical, phenomenal, or something else?"
I was wrong to describe colors as worldly characteristics. Why? because to use the term 'color' is to ascribe certain phenomenal characteristics to it. But of course, those characteristics do not exist without the organism.
So, what are colours?
The answer comes down to 'representation' and to information you might be glad to hear.
The physical is inclusively a representational ontology (I think this is the right way of putting it). We can never know what the intrinsic nature of reality is (as per B Russell). Physicality is defined by interaction (i.e. without interaction there is no evidence of the physical—think of dark matter as an example: it must exist because spiral galaxies behave as if it does). As I have expressed to you by email, the conditions following interaction must represent, in some manner, the nature of the conditions prior to interaction. This is how one can say that post-interactive conditions are informed by the nature of the interaction which is determined by pre-interactive conditions (there has to be a non-random relation for the universe to exist physically).
This is an abstract way of saying that there is ultimately representation in why and how matter exists.
Evolution ensures that there are different classes of representation.
electromagnetic waves are, at base, one class of physical representation.
physiologies provide another class of representation, whereby electromagnetic waves may be qualitatively relevant to a species' survival.
phenomenal experience is a third class of representation of electromagnetic waves that are qualitatively relevant, but individual specific, changing in flavour from moment to the next (actually, stare at a wall for long enough and the experience changes ie. phenomenal experience is time dependent even when it feels stable and the same).
The fourth class of representation for electromagnetic waves is conceptual. Electromagnetic waves can be measured as cycles per second, the value of which correlates with our phenomenal experiences of them, which have the flavours they have as per their qualitative relevance.

I like this idea of hierarchical stages of representation flowing naturally from cause-effect relationships and evolution. The idea that phenomenal qualities are non-conceptual representations is especially appealing to me. However, we're faced with (at least) the two issues noted above (if one views phenomenal characteristics as non-physical; it's hard to see how they could be physical, at least in the typical sense).

Again, I'm interested to hear about the cognitive processes you mentioned, what they are and how they contribute to the emrgence of phenomenal qualities/characteristics.

So, what are colors? The answer depends on what class of representation one is looking to.

Well, if we're agreeing that colors are phenomenal qualities, i.e., non-conceptual representations, then colors would exist at the 3rd class of representation noted above.

It's physical electromagnetic waves that would be represented differently at each stage, with phenomenal colors being one representational stage, right?

 

[Pharoah]

Ah, ok. Cognitive mechanisms. I would like to hear more about these.

So phenomenal qualities (colors, smells, tastes, affects, etc.) require physical stimuli, physiological mechanisms, and cognitive mechanisms to "emerge?"


As I understand it, there are at least two main aspects that need explaining: (1) How do non-physical, phenomenal characteristics emerge from physical causes/processes, and (2) how do non-physical, phenomenal characteristics have causal influence on the physical?

Perhaps you don't view phenomenal qualities as non-physical qualities.


I like this idea of hierarchical stages of representation flowing naturally from cause-effect relationships and evolution. The idea that phenomenal qualities are non-conceptual representations is especially appealing to me. However, we're faced with (at least) the two issues noted above (if one views phenomenal characteristics as non-physical; it's hard to see how they could be physical, at least in the typical sense).

Again, I'm interested to hear about the cognitive processes you mentioned, what they are and how they contribute to the emrgence of phenomenal qualities/characteristics.


Well, if we're agreeing that colors are phenomenal qualities, i.e., non-conceptual representations, then colors would exist at the 3rd class of representation noted above.

It's physical electromagnetic waves that would be represented differently at each stage, with phenomenal colors being one representational stage, right?

"So phenomenal qualities (colors, smells, tastes, affects, etc.) require physical stimuli, physiological mechanisms, and cognitive mechanisms to "emerge?""
Yes

"Perhaps you don't view phenomenal qualities as non-physical qualities."
Physical qualities yes... a physical process rather than a property or thing in itself

The cognitive mechanism are v complex... one could theorise but ultimately this is an empirical problem.

"Well, if we're agreeing that colors are phenomenal qualities, i.e., non-conceptual representations, then colors would exist at the 3rd class of representation noted above." - yes for the creature with the requisite hierarchically built mechanisms in place.

"It's physical electromagnetic waves that would be represented differently at each stage, with phenomenal colors being one representational stage, right?" exactly. The word "color" is a concept—a label given to refer to "that phenomenal qualitative thing we refer to objects as having... xyz THz".

Will try to address those two questions you pose in the paper with greater clarity.

 

[Pharoah]

To tackle one of your questions:

what is it about evaluation that turns mere qualitatively relevant, environmental assimilation that is species specific into phenomenally conscious qualitative experience that is individual specific?

A key characteristic of mechanisms that might be said to evaluate, is their spatiotemporal sensitivity (or flexibility). This subtle evocation is epitomised in the ability to associate qualitative relevancy to ‘events of the past’ and to ‘the objects of the world’—namely, to remember and to recall time and space sensitive qualifications, and thereby to become an individuated agency, rather than an agency for a species, in a changing spatiotemporal world. With the members of a species whose activities are determined solely by innately acquired reactive physiologies, time and space is, in a sense, frozen. What is meant by the notion that time and space is frozen? Whilst physiologies assimilate the qualitative relevancy of environment—an assimilation that reflects or represents the facts of the world; a world that has objects, in space and time relative positions—it is an assimilation that is formulated, not by an individual member’s own personal circumstances (circumstances that are necessarily time and space sensitive), but by the effects of generational mutations and selective pressures on a species. Alternatively, with organisms that evaluate qualitative relevancy, time and space carries a unique and individuated dimension: there is the comparison of qualitative relevancy from one moment to another and from one spatial stance to another. Aligned with this spatiotemporal sensitivity then, is the idea of developing individuated qualitative associations between primal affectations and the causal world beyond—of a pre-reflective relation of qualitative being in a spatiotemporal world among other beings and subjects. What we get, is the sense of an objective world becoming divided and delineated into a changing subjective spatiotemporal and qualitative worldview. In this regard, I am presenting an account of an emerging subjective stance from the ‘objective side’ (Nagel, 1986), i.e., a concept of the subjective individuated perspective (that is open to objective “completion”) by straddling the subjective-objective gap through a rationalist epistemology.

 

[Constance]

. . .In this regard, I am presenting an account of an emerging subjective stance from the ‘objective side’ (Nagel, 1986), i.e., a concept of the subjective individuated perspective (that is open to objective “completion”) by straddling the subjective-objective gap through a rationalist epistemology.

Will your revised paper lay out a detailed account of Nagel's support for his theory (in The View from Nowhere) of how subjectivity is produced from objectivity {"the mere objectiveness of things" that consciousness can never reach}. What are Nagel's grounds for understanding "the subjective-objective gap" though what he and you refer to as 'a rationalist epistemology'? What are the assumptions or presuppositions of that epistemology?

In what I'm understanding so far in your recent exchanges with Soupie it seems there is still no grappling with how and at what point in evolution the subjectivity of protoconsciousness and consciousness show up in nature, either in terms of the physiological evolution of species or in terms of 'primordial consciousness' as we contemplate its expression in human infants/toddlers and in proto-humans or early humans.

Does Nagel address 'sense-data' characterizations of phenomenal consciousness and the objections to them [laid out clearly in the IEP article linked below]? Does he or do you directly respond to the question "Does phenomenal consciousness respond to 'sense-data' [e.g., with color, respond to EM frequencies] or instead respond directly to visible and other phenomena encountered in the physical world?"

What are sense data? . . . What is sensing?

Sense-Data | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

[Constance]

The question, as I see it, is: can anyone begin to understand consciousness and the phenomenal experience that stimulates it, brings it forward, develops it, without dealing with consciousness and phenomenal experience directly, recognizing the integral fullness of the confluence, the compresence, of subjectivity and objectivity in experience?

 

[Constance]

Note on Moonlight

The one moonlight, in the simple-colored night,
Like a plain poet revolving in his mind
The sameness of his various universe,
Shines on the mere objectiveness of things.

It is as if being was to be observed,
As if, among the possible purposes
Of what one sees, the purpose that comes first,
The surface, is the purpose to be seen,

The property of the moon, what it evokes.
It is to disclose the essential presence, say,
Of a mountain, expanded and elevated almost
Into a sense, an object the less; or else

To disclose in the figure waiting on the road
An object the more, an undetermined form
Between the slouchings of a gunman and a lover,
A gesture in the dark, a fear one feels

In the great vistas of night air, that takes this form,
In the arbors that are as if of Saturn-star.
So, then, this warm, wide, weatherless quietude
Is active with a power, an inherent life,

In spite of the mere objectiveness of things,
Like a cloud-cap in the corner of a looking-glass,
A change of color in the plain poet's mind,
Night and silence disturbed by an interior sound,

The one moonlight, the various universe, intended
So much just to be seen -- a purpose, empty
Perhaps, absurd perhaps, but at least a purpose,
Certain and ever more fresh. Ah! Certain, for sure . . .

Wallace Stevens, The Rock (1954).

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah said:
↑
". . .In this regard, I am presenting an account of an emerging subjective stance from the ‘objective side’ (Nagel, 1986), i.e., a concept of the subjective individuated perspective (that is open to objective “completion”) by straddling the subjective-objective gap through a rationalist epistemology."

What "objective 'completion'" has our species reached in science or philosophy?