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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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smcder
Guest
But a basic question that I've not seen explored - and now I'll have to go looking for it, is can the individual as a single male or female body, achieve full consciousness or does that require an intermingling of gender energy? The study above had a female bringing herself to climax - what if we put male and female and male and male and female and female and other combinations in the scanner? What will we see in the brains? Can that be achieved by individuals alone or only when together??
And if this is the case ... what will happen to our consciousness, to our humanity if we are sealed off in cybernetic supersuits, in a post-biological, post human future? Isn't transhumanism ultimately about sealing off, about packaging the ego in sillicone - adding one more layer? We already erect so many barriers between us, our selves, ... is there something detectable psychologically in those who have an interest in transhumanism, in terms of their thoughts toward intimacy, physical and emotional? There is a haunting anime in which lovers are separated by tremendous, cosmic distances - connected only by some form of transmission ... there is also a haunting image of a man, a father and husband - communicating with his wife as he aspyhxiates on Mt Everest ... he knows he is dying and she does too, I only saw about a minute of this footage and the image stays with me. But what if this is a choice? What of the psychology of those who can withstand the loneliness required to conquer not just outer space but a posthuman personal inner space?
What is love in the time of the Daleks?
And if this is the case ... what will happen to our consciousness, to our humanity if we are sealed off in cybernetic supersuits, in a post-biological, post human future? Isn't transhumanism ultimately about sealing off, about packaging the ego in sillicone - adding one more layer? We already erect so many barriers between us, our selves, ... is there something detectable psychologically in those who have an interest in transhumanism, in terms of their thoughts toward intimacy, physical and emotional? There is a haunting anime in which lovers are separated by tremendous, cosmic distances - connected only by some form of transmission ... there is also a haunting image of a man, a father and husband - communicating with his wife as he aspyhxiates on Mt Everest ... he knows he is dying and she does too, I only saw about a minute of this footage and the image stays with me. But what if this is a choice? What of the psychology of those who can withstand the loneliness required to conquer not just outer space but a posthuman personal inner space?
What is love in the time of the Daleks?
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smcder
Guest
To be is to do”—Socrates.
“To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra.
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
Read more: Frank Sinatra - Fly Me To The Moon Lyrics | MetroLyrics
“To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra.
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
Read more: Frank Sinatra - Fly Me To The Moon Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
But that's just it, it's an apparently pre-reflective quality. Once one pays attention to it—reflects upon it—it ceases to be "pre-reflective."
I'm trying to understand how phens even reached this conclusion. Was it by experience or logic?
Ex: I have fans that turn on in my attics when the temp hits 90°. Let's say they are running but I am not consciously (reflectively) aware. Someone might ask: how long have they been running? I might be able to ponder it for a moment and realize that I had heard the hum of the fans for about 15 min, the amount of time I had been sitting reading, say.
(We talked about this when we discussed the essay by the lady with the colored hair. She talked about this same phenomenon.)
So, what I've done is *tried* to ponder/think back about periods of time during which I wasn't "consciously" aware of stimuli, but upon reflection I realize that, indeed, I had been hearing/seeing/smelling something (which is interesting in and of itself).
What I never seem to recall when I do this, is the quality of a self-consciousness.
Now, if one were to say that, upon reflection, I recall various stimuli, and these stimuli all seemed to flow through "my" unique pov—and in this way, via "my" pov, one can say a self-consciousness is implicit, that I can agree with.
But an implicit, pre-reflective quality of self-consciousness accompanying all experience... No, I can't confirm that in my experience.
But you just said that "upon reflection I realize that, indeed, I had been hearing/seeing/smelling something." Who had your consciousness when you thought you didn't? And then gave you its experiences??
We couldn't possibly live in the flow of our openness to being-in-the-world if we were always thinking about what we're hearing, seeing, thinking self-reflectively. Indeed, that would be a dreadful way to live and breathe and be. We absorb an enormous amount of experience of the world when we're not either reflectively or self-reflectively doing so. And it plays back to us at various levels or waits in subconsciousness to show up in dreams. We're immersed in the world's being as part of our being. As MP said, "the fish is in the water and the water is in the fish."
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smcder
Guest
@Constance
Alan Watts on Jung:
He makes an interesting point about Eastern approaches for Westerners ... he says the "babbling mind" of the Westerner won't stop ... until he/she gets in touch with it (the subconscious) ... the Easterner has done this, so he/she can get on with meditating ...
Alan Watts on Jung:
He makes an interesting point about Eastern approaches for Westerners ... he says the "babbling mind" of the Westerner won't stop ... until he/she gets in touch with it (the subconscious) ... the Easterner has done this, so he/she can get on with meditating ...
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smcder
Guest
@Soupie
David Weinberger:Knowledge at the End of the Information Age | TVO
interesting bits on definition of knowledge and DNA is not information (it's squishy)
David Weinberger:Knowledge at the End of the Information Age | TVO
interesting bits on definition of knowledge and DNA is not information (it's squishy)
But do all Westerners have 'babbling minds'? I don't, and most of my friends don't. My sister, however, does. Whenever she has quiet time her mind fills up with apprehension and needless, pointless, worrying. She even had a friend who taught meditation, but she wasn't interested in trying it. I know you have a meditation practice and that you've found it rewarding in a number of ways. I have to confess that I've never felt the need to shut the outer world down. But I do think it must be beneficial for those who desire that to be able to attain it..
Steve, would you be a peach and tell me what Weinberger thinks "the new digital disorder" is? That way I can listen to music instead of listening to him.
Thank you for sorting that out for me. I gather that for the author "fus[ing] the conceptual horizons of these two ideas" would mean spiritualizing science in some way, dissolving its objectivist, reductivist, interests. Is that right?
Steve, would you be a peach and tell me what Weinberger thinks "the new digital disorder" is? That way I can listen to music instead of listening to him.
Can you blame me? Listen for an hour . . .
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Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
Sorry I'm a bit behind on Paracast...
@Soupie Great... and the feedback would be most welcome. I have been preparing my response to a submission rejection: I plan to go on the offensive and want to have an erudite counter argument to reviewer's criticisms.
I have been preparing a second paper on information which I intend to submit to a 'call for papers' on information.. I am quite excited about it and think it may be up your street @Soupie.
Pharoah, I like this paper very much. On first reading, after you emailed it to me a few weeks ago, I was pretty much lost in it. I just read it again today and find it generally persuasive and persuasive in the details, with the exception of the Mary case, still. I also think the paper is extremely well written. (note: before I forget, in the fourth word of the third line above the heading 'Conclusion' you have a typographical error: you have 'qualities' where you want 'qualifies'.)
I should add that you don't make the paper easy to read, but that makes for an intriguing experience for the reader, for with each succeeding section it becomes increasingly unmistakeable that you are building step by step to an intimidating thesis. The paper requires and deserves attentive close reading; it might be that your two ms readers were not able to give it this kind of reading.
I think you're right to ask the journal editor to obtain detailed explanations of the judgments of the ms reviewers. If you want to share them with me in email, I'll try to offer help if I can in your response to the journal.
I also think you should send the paper to both Nagel and Chalmers and ask them for their responses and suggestions.
Bravo, Pharoah.
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smcder
Guest
Why did they reject the submission?
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smcder
Guest
Answers on quora to what is your TOE?
What is your theory of everything? - Quora
Below is the first paragraph or two of each response:
1. Systems theory provides a theory of "almost everything": a mechanistic view of biological life that can span cellular biology, evolution, ecosystems, the brain, the mind, consciousness, and human society.
From the perspective of systems theory, the fundamental building block of life, and ultimately consciousness and subjectivity, may be the openly connected recurrent feedback loop.
2. My Theory of almost Everything is a meta-theory called Special Systems Theory. Together with General Schemas Theory and Emergent Meta-systems Theory it attempts to explain the underlying a priori necessities of a meta-theory for the arising of Life, Consciousness and the Social. My main contribution is adding the basis for understanding the relation between these emergent thresholds via anomalies in mathematics and physics. A recent summary is here Page on Mediafire. If you really want to get deeply into it see Reflexive Autopoietic Dissipative Special Systems Theory which is the long version which is a bit older at Advanced Systems Theory, Philosophy, Especially Metaphysics and you can also see Reflexive Autopoietic Systems Theory at the same site which are the essays I wrote while I was discovering the theory. The theory hearkens back to myFragmentation of Being and the Path Beyond the Void also at the same site.
What is your theory of everything? - Quora
Below is the first paragraph or two of each response:
1. Systems theory provides a theory of "almost everything": a mechanistic view of biological life that can span cellular biology, evolution, ecosystems, the brain, the mind, consciousness, and human society.
From the perspective of systems theory, the fundamental building block of life, and ultimately consciousness and subjectivity, may be the openly connected recurrent feedback loop.
2. My Theory of almost Everything is a meta-theory called Special Systems Theory. Together with General Schemas Theory and Emergent Meta-systems Theory it attempts to explain the underlying a priori necessities of a meta-theory for the arising of Life, Consciousness and the Social. My main contribution is adding the basis for understanding the relation between these emergent thresholds via anomalies in mathematics and physics. A recent summary is here Page on Mediafire. If you really want to get deeply into it see Reflexive Autopoietic Dissipative Special Systems Theory which is the long version which is a bit older at Advanced Systems Theory, Philosophy, Especially Metaphysics and you can also see Reflexive Autopoietic Systems Theory at the same site which are the essays I wrote while I was discovering the theory. The theory hearkens back to myFragmentation of Being and the Path Beyond the Void also at the same site.
S
smcder
Guest
TOEs cont.
3. It isn't fundamentally 'new', its core features have been around for thousands of years (although consistently misunderstood by the vast majority due to naive realist interpretations). See John Ringland's: What is naive realism?
However it does have certain novel aspects, such as a mathematical formulation with explicit connections with numerous features of modern science, ancient wisdom and subjective experience.
4. I call my Theory of Everything Multisense Realism. The name is intended to convey the idea that the whole of what we call reality is sourced entirely to a single unifying principle, which is the multiplicity of sense. Matter is that which feels like matter, which is seen to act like matter, and which seems to imply certain sensibilities. All phenomena are similarly known to us through chains of nested experiences which all ultimately begin and end in expectations which seem self-evident. Blue simply looks blue, and pain simply feels painful, regardless of any mechanical processes associated with them. It is not necessary to learn how to feel pain, nor could any such learning help us discover pain if we could not feel it to begin with. No equation resolves to equal the feeling of pain.
3. It isn't fundamentally 'new', its core features have been around for thousands of years (although consistently misunderstood by the vast majority due to naive realist interpretations). See John Ringland's: What is naive realism?
However it does have certain novel aspects, such as a mathematical formulation with explicit connections with numerous features of modern science, ancient wisdom and subjective experience.
4. I call my Theory of Everything Multisense Realism. The name is intended to convey the idea that the whole of what we call reality is sourced entirely to a single unifying principle, which is the multiplicity of sense. Matter is that which feels like matter, which is seen to act like matter, and which seems to imply certain sensibilities. All phenomena are similarly known to us through chains of nested experiences which all ultimately begin and end in expectations which seem self-evident. Blue simply looks blue, and pain simply feels painful, regardless of any mechanical processes associated with them. It is not necessary to learn how to feel pain, nor could any such learning help us discover pain if we could not feel it to begin with. No equation resolves to equal the feeling of pain.
S
smcder
Guest
Here is theory# 4s answers to the ""hard problem"" and to Free Will:
4. The Hard Problem of Consciousness: Is understood as part of the larger Presentation Problem, which includes -
5. Free Will: As with the existence of aesthetic presentation, the presence of free will, even as an "illusion" is impossible under strict determinism. The whole point of determinism is to ground all phenomena in a firmament of strict parsimony. The idea is that things just don't happen willy-nilly, they are the consequences of physical or mathematical laws. Such a universe has no room for machines with parts which present themselves to other parts as an illusion of effectiveness. Certainly in the real world, our personal estimation of the effectiveness of our will and of our opportunities to exercise its freedom may not be all they are cracked up to be, however, the very consideration of whether or not to 'believe in free will' is predicated on the implicit expectation that in fact our belief supervenes upon our voluntary participation in some materially important way. All arguments against free will are ultimately arguments against the possibility of participating in any kind of argumentation in the first place.
All of these facets of the theory stem from reversing the core assumption of the Western worldview, that consciousness is a product of an animal's brain rather than that the entire universe is a staggeringly elaborate nesting of participatory sense experiences. This is not an anthropomorphic concept, as it does not elevate human experience, biological experience, or even the sense of a self as being fundamental. Instead, sense itself is seen as the producer of its own augmentation, via spacetime diffraction, which yields private significance and public entropy.
4. The Hard Problem of Consciousness: Is understood as part of the larger Presentation Problem, which includes -
- Hard Problem = Why is X presented as an experience? (X = “information", logical or physical functions, calcium waves, action potentials, Bayesian integrations, etc.)
- Explanatory Gap = How and where is presentation accomplished with respect to X?
- Binding Problem = How are presented experiences segregated and combined with each other? How do presentations cohere?
- Symbol Grounding = How are experiences associated with each other on multiple levels of presentation? How do presentations adhere?
- Mind Body Problem = Why do public facing presences and private facing presences seem ontologically exclusive and aesthetically opposite to each other?
5. Free Will: As with the existence of aesthetic presentation, the presence of free will, even as an "illusion" is impossible under strict determinism. The whole point of determinism is to ground all phenomena in a firmament of strict parsimony. The idea is that things just don't happen willy-nilly, they are the consequences of physical or mathematical laws. Such a universe has no room for machines with parts which present themselves to other parts as an illusion of effectiveness. Certainly in the real world, our personal estimation of the effectiveness of our will and of our opportunities to exercise its freedom may not be all they are cracked up to be, however, the very consideration of whether or not to 'believe in free will' is predicated on the implicit expectation that in fact our belief supervenes upon our voluntary participation in some materially important way. All arguments against free will are ultimately arguments against the possibility of participating in any kind of argumentation in the first place.
All of these facets of the theory stem from reversing the core assumption of the Western worldview, that consciousness is a product of an animal's brain rather than that the entire universe is a staggeringly elaborate nesting of participatory sense experiences. This is not an anthropomorphic concept, as it does not elevate human experience, biological experience, or even the sense of a self as being fundamental. Instead, sense itself is seen as the producer of its own augmentation, via spacetime diffraction, which yields private significance and public entropy.
S
smcder
Guest
One more ... a summary of Biocentrism, by Robert Lanza and Bob Bermam
"The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science, not with imaginary strings that occupy equally imaginary unseen dimensions, but with a much simpler idea that is rife with so many shocking new perspectives that we are unlikely ever to see reality the same way again.
In the past few decades, major puzzles of mainstream science have forced a re-evaluation of the nature of the universe that goes far beyond anything we could have imagined. A more accurate understanding of the world requires that we consider it biologically centered. It’s a simple but amazing concept thatBiocentrism attempts to clarify: Life creates the universe, instead of the other way around.
Understanding this more fully yields answers to several long-held puzzles. This new model — combining physics and biology instead of keeping them separate, and putting observers firmly into the equation — is called biocentrism. Its necessity is driven in part by the ongoing attempts to create an overarching view, a theory of everything. Such efforts have now stretched for decades, without much success except as a way of financially facilitating the careers of theoreticians and graduate students."
What we need of course is a Theory of Theories of Everything:
TOTOE!
"The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science, not with imaginary strings that occupy equally imaginary unseen dimensions, but with a much simpler idea that is rife with so many shocking new perspectives that we are unlikely ever to see reality the same way again.
In the past few decades, major puzzles of mainstream science have forced a re-evaluation of the nature of the universe that goes far beyond anything we could have imagined. A more accurate understanding of the world requires that we consider it biologically centered. It’s a simple but amazing concept thatBiocentrism attempts to clarify: Life creates the universe, instead of the other way around.
Understanding this more fully yields answers to several long-held puzzles. This new model — combining physics and biology instead of keeping them separate, and putting observers firmly into the equation — is called biocentrism. Its necessity is driven in part by the ongoing attempts to create an overarching view, a theory of everything. Such efforts have now stretched for decades, without much success except as a way of financially facilitating the careers of theoreticians and graduate students."
What we need of course is a Theory of Theories of Everything:
TOTOE!
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
@Constance @smcder
It has not been rejected. But I am preparing for a reject because I think I should be able to counter any rejection with an articualte disciplined repost... and that requires preparation.
Thanks for the feedback Constance.
The quality of the paper is in no small measure due to the positive criticisms and enquiring questions that have come from this forum group over the months
It has not been rejected. But I am preparing for a reject because I think I should be able to counter any rejection with an articualte disciplined repost... and that requires preparation.
Thanks for the feedback Constance.
The quality of the paper is in no small measure due to the positive criticisms and enquiring questions that have come from this forum group over the months
S
smcder
Guest
What' do you anticipate is the most likely reason they would reject the paper?
When do you expect an answer?
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