Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[Constance]

This is good:

Jaak Panksepp, THE PERICONSCIOUS SUBSTRATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
AFFECTIVE STATES AND THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF THE SELF


http://www.researchgate.net/profile...f_the_self/links/553970b90cf2239f4e7d929e.pdf

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie, can you scroll back to that section of the book and in your own words express which philosophers or 'systems' of philosophy the author refers to? Thanks.

“The most important thing about this axiomatic adjustment is that it enables us to regain a picture of physical reality that is entirely intuitive. That picture carries us to some rather interesting philosophical implications, which are fully developed in Part Three of this book.

Now that we have discussed the procedure for restructuring our map of physical reality, let’s jump right in and begin exploring the quantized realm that is framed by the notion of absolute volume.”

Excerpt From: Roberts, Thad. “Einstein's Intuition.” v1.0. Thad Roberts, 2015. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: Einstein's Intuition by Thad Roberts on iBooks

 

[Constance]

“The most important thing about this axiomatic adjustment is that it enables us to regain a picture of physical reality that is entirely intuitive. That picture carries us to some rather interesting philosophical implications, which are fully developed in [. . . Part Three of this book].

Ah, thanks. The suspense is over, or at least suspended until you get to Part III, when I'll hope you'll tell me/us who Roberts sees as his philosophical fellows. Looking forward. In the meantime, maybe I can access his index in samples at Google Books or amazon and get a grasp of that.

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah, re Neil Greenberg, you might get a sense of the kind of thinker he is (both broad and deep) and his general style (generous) by reading his review of Up from Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence at the following link:

http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/skoyles.pdf


The amazon page concerning Up from Dragons further clarifies the situation of the inquiry into consciousness at the time it was published (2002). Search at amazon for John Skoyles and Dorian Sagan and the book's title.

 

[Constance]

Reading about Spinoza today I was led by Google to discover that Damasio's book Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain is available in whole at this wordpress link:

https://ahandfulofleaves.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/looking-for-spinoza_damasio.pdf


Also found that Jaak Panksepp reviewed the book in the journal Consciousness & Emotion, Volume 4, Number 1, 2003, pp. 111-134(24). I'm still looking for a copy of Panksepp's review online and will post it here when/if I do.

In the meantime, Panksepp and others of interest are quoted in this NYT review of the book:
I Feel, Therefore I Am


AND Damasio's most recent book, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain, is also available in full at this link:

https://ahandfulofleaves.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/self-comes-to-mind_damasio.pdf

 

[Soupie]

@Constance @Pharoah

I recently stumbled upon a very rigorous (and apparently well-known) neuropsychological model for human personality. That is, it's a model of how "innate physiologies" (sound familiar?) regulate behavior.

I think both of you would appreciate this model immensely. (There seems to be much overlap with the work of Panksepp, but none of his work is cited in this paper but might be elsewhere in regards to RST.)

The paper is ~30 pages, but is an easy, interesting, exciting read.

http://www.philipcorr.net/uploads/downloads/15.pdf

"RST evolved over the past forty years, from its inception in 1970, and it has gone through several refinements, most notably by Gray and McNaughton (2000). As we shall see throughout this chapter, RST can appear, at first blush, complex, indeed confusing, because it encompasses a number of approaches that move at different paces. This point is well made by Smillie, Pickering and Jackson (2006, p. 320), who note that, although RST is often seen as a theory of personality, it is ‘more accurately identified as a neuropsychology of emotion, motivation and learning. In fact, RST was born of basic animal learning research, initially not at all concerned with personality’. ...

RST is built upon a description of the immediate/short-term state of neural systems: how animals, including the human form, respond to motivationally significant (i.e., ‘reinforcing’) stimuli, and which neuropsychological systems mediate these responses. ... [T]o produce consistent long-term effects, environmental influences must be instantiated in biological systems: environmental influences do not have any substance unless there is a biological system to mediate them. ...

From these converging lines of evidence, Gray (1970) advanced the claim that the ‘emotions’ are elicited by motivationally-significant (‘reinforcing’) stimuli (of any kind) that activate innate systems in the brain. Now seen as rather innocuous, this claim has important and widespread implications for personality psychology: if emotion, and its related motivation, were fundamental to personality (as suggested by Eysenck’s own work in linking personality to psychopathology) then we may better understand personality by understanding emotion systems in the brain.

In critiquing Eysenck’s approach, Gray noted that classical conditioning does not, indeed cannot, create emotion, normal or pathological; all it can do is to transform initially neutral stimuli into conditioned (reinforcing) stimuli that, via Pavlovian classical conditioning, acquire the power to activate innate systems of emotion which, themselves, are responsible for generating emotion. [@Pharoah "motivationally significant" strikes as very similar to "qualitatively relevant."]

 

[Pharoah]

@Constance @Pharoah

I recently stumbled upon a very rigorous (and apparently well-known) neuropsychological model for human personality. That is, it's a model of how "innate physiologies" (sound familiar?) regulate behavior.

I think both of you would appreciate this model immensely. (There seems to be much overlap with the work of Panksepp, but none of his work is cited in this paper but might be elsewhere in regards to RST.)

The paper is ~30 pages, but is an easy, interesting, exciting read.

http://www.philipcorr.net/uploads/downloads/15.pdf

"RST evolved over the past forty years, from its inception in 1970, and it has gone through several refinements, most notably by Gray and McNaughton (2000). As we shall see throughout this chapter, RST can appear, at first blush, complex, indeed confusing, because it encompasses a number of approaches that move at different paces. This point is well made by Smillie, Pickering and Jackson (2006, p. 320), who note that, although RST is often seen as a theory of personality, it is ‘more accurately identified as a neuropsychology of emotion, motivation and learning. In fact, RST was born of basic animal learning research, initially not at all concerned with personality’. ...

RST is built upon a description of the immediate/short-term state of neural systems: how animals, including the human form, respond to motivationally significant (i.e., ‘reinforcing’) stimuli, and which neuropsychological systems mediate these responses. ... [T]o produce consistent long-term effects, environmental influences must be instantiated in biological systems: environmental influences do not have any substance unless there is a biological system to mediate them. ...

From these converging lines of evidence, Gray (1970) advanced the claim that the ‘emotions’ are elicited by motivationally-significant (‘reinforcing’) stimuli (of any kind) that activate innate systems in the brain. Now seen as rather innocuous, this claim has important and widespread implications for personality psychology: if emotion, and its related motivation, were fundamental to personality (as suggested by Eysenck’s own work in linking personality to psychopathology) then we may better understand personality by understanding emotion systems in the brain.

In critiquing Eysenck’s approach, Gray noted that classical conditioning does not, indeed cannot, create emotion, normal or pathological; all it can do is to transform initially neutral stimuli into conditioned (reinforcing) stimuli that, via Pavlovian classical conditioning, acquire the power to activate innate systems of emotion which, themselves, are responsible for generating emotion. [@Pharoah "motivationally significant" strikes as very similar to "qualitatively relevant."]

@Soupie I'll read the paper. It does appear yo have behaviourist leanings... Not sure.

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie I'll read the paper. It does appear yo have behaviourist leanings... Not sure.

Actually, no. And that's the beauty of the model. It provides a very clear model of the internal, central neurophysiological and phenomenological states that regulate the behavior of organisms in the presence of stimuli.

I've attached a flow chart that I put together to help me conceptualize this process.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
Thanks for posting the flow diagram.
Not so kean on the blue section as I have a problem with cognitive appraisal, deliberstion, and "executive system". But looks interesting.

btw my 500w words:

Hierarchical construct theory and the three classes of truth-informed justification

Nagel expresses the view that an objective–subjective bridge is attainable in principle but will take centuries to construct. The Hierarchical Construct Theory (HCT)—a synthesis of 30 years of work—is a deductive-nomological explanation of subjectivity in objective terms: the explanation does not tell us ‘what it is like’ to be a particular creature, but approximates instead in allowing us to understand why creatures have a ‘what it is like’ and why their phenomenal experience is qualitative. The solution is a difficult pill for philosophers to swallow, more so for requiring a revisionary approach to the orthodoxy on knowledge, representation and information, but if the world’s foremost conference on consciousness is not deemed suitable to host such a radical discovery, then I don’t know what is:
In its traditional analysis, knowledge is belief-dependent; one can know a fact to be a fact only in virtue of one’s belief that it is so. Furthermore, if someone can believe that P only if they possess concepts sufficient for grasping P, belief, and therefore knowledge on this account, must be concept-dependent. However, the natural world provides numerous examples indicating that not all facts need be formulated conceptually. Survival justification of, for example adapted physiology, is not predicated on belief (e.g., the fact of the sun's location is determined by the biochemistry of heliotropic plants). HCT explicates a hierarchy of knowledge classes. Each evolve justified and meaningful operant mechanisms through an environmental discourse and thereby present their competing value-driven motivations for action.
Philosophical orthodoxy does not normally extend representation to biochemical and neurological mechanisms, restricting it to semantically evaluable mental objects, e.g. concepts, ideas, percepts, rules and thoughts. Alternatively, HCT argues that there are causally distinct classes of representation e.g., biochemical mechanisms have a qualitative and relevant correspondence with the environment. However, such mechanisms are not representational of a qualitative environment, but have themselves become comparatively qualitative and relevant as an adaptive response to an otherwise qualitatively sterile world: physiologies do not represent, as orthodoxy has it, the fact of what things are but what environmental features have come to mean for species' survival: as with knowledge, there are causally distinct classes of representation.
The commonly held view is that information is a commodity that exists 'out there' independently of agency, awaiting operational systems capable of constructing meaning. Those in consciousness studies who promulgate this view find that the fundamental question underpinning their naturalist ambitions is how meaning is created from the external pool of environmental information. Alternatively, HCT explains that the informational meaning attributed to environmental interaction is entirely dependent on the evolved informational construct class of the observing agency.
The deductive component, on which these reinterpretations are founded, corresponds with empirical multidisciplinary findings. The nomological component extrapolates from Newton's third law to explain why there must be emergence of hierarchical causally distinct construct classes and why their forms evolve

 

[Constance]

@Soupie
Thanks for posting the flow diagram.
Not so kean on the blue section as I have a problem with cognitive appraisal, deliberstion, and "executive system". But looks interesting.

Actually, no. And that's the beauty of the model. It provides a very clear model of the internal, central neurophysiological and phenomenological states that regulate the behavior of organisms in the presence of stimuli.

I've attached a flow chart that I put together to help me conceptualize this process.

The flow chart is helpful. I found the paper itself rough going. I'm looking for online texts of two papers by Gray described at the following links (but not yet finding the whole papers online).

Jeffrey Gray, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping - PhilPapers

Jeffrey A. Gray, The contents of consciousness: A neuropsychological conjecture - PhilPapers

I found a response to Gray's theory by Max Velmans, extended in two later papers, all linked below.


THE LIMITS OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL MODELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18(4), 702-703 (1995).
(a commentary on Gray, J.(1995) The contents of consciousness: a neurophysiological conjecture. BBS, 18 (4): 659-676).
Max Velmans, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, LewishamWay, London SE14 6NW, England

ABSTRACT: This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other third-person perspective models. To approach such questions the first-person nature of consciousness needs to be taken seriously in combination with third-person models of the brain.

[Added notes for 2013 online version: Nearly 20 years after its original publication this commentary on Jeffrey Gray’s thoughtful BBS target article still has contemporary relevance as, within an exclusively third-person evolutionary paradigm, the evolution and function of first-person consciousness continues to present difficulties. Those interested in these issues may also want to look at my more recent online papers that address this in more detail, particularly The evolution of consciousness (2012) and Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness? (2011)]

KEYWORDS: consciousness, functionalism, evolution, first person, third person,reductionism, neurophysiological models

“What would a theory of consciousness need to explain? According to Gray it would need to explain (1) how consciousness evolved, (2) how it confers survival value, (3) how it arises out of brain events, and (4) how it alters behaviour (introduction, paragraph 5). Much of Gray's target article deals with question 3, focusing both on how consciousness relates to the neurophysiological structure of the brain and to the brain viewed as an information processing system. The research literature in this area is extensive (cf. Farthing 1992, and reviews in Velmans 1996) — but Gray's closely-argued attempt to relate consciousness to the output of a subicular comparator approaches the issues from an unusual direction in that it draws on the blocking of latent inhibition in laboratory rats and studies of schizophrenia in humans, whereas it is more common in this area to draw on experimentally induced contrasts between conscious and pre- or nonconscious processing in normally functioning human adults (cf. Baars 1988; Velmans 1991) or on clinical dissociations between consciousness and nonconscious functioning within neuropsychology (cf. readings in Milner& Rugg 1992).Gray's conclusions about the kind of information processing that might support consciousness nevertheless converge in some respects with those of other theorists. It is generally accepted, for example, that any theory which relates consciousness to human information processing needs to deal not only with the diversity of the contents of consciousness, but also with how those diverse contents are constructed into a coherent experience, already integrated, assessed for its novelty or importance, and served up in a way that enables adaptive interaction with the world. Whether this is achieved primarily by a "comparator system," as Gray suggests, or best thought of in another way depends heavily on the experimental phenomena one seeks to explain. . . . .”

The limits of neuropsychological models of consciousness


“Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness?
A Review of Humphrey,N. (2010) Soul Dust : The Magic of Consciousness. London: Quercus, ISBN 9781849162371

Max Velmans, Goldsmiths, University of London
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 18, No.11-12 (2011), pp. 243-254.

Key words: evolutionary theory, evolution, consciousness, illusion, Humphrey, Darwin, Dawkins, reproductive fitness, science, reductionism, doctrine, faith, soul

“In September 2000 I organised a public debate on the motion “Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness?” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In spite of having eminent speakers such as Jeffrey Gray and Stevan Harnad already lined up, we found it very difficult to tempt a prominent evolutionary theorist into defending the motion. For example, the chair of the debate Alex Kacelnick (professor of Behavioural Ecology at Oxford) was unable to persuade his colleague Richard Dawkins to speak. Why not? Because the problem consciousness poses to evolutionary theory is far more difficult than it might seem. Many readers of this journal will be familiar with the issues, which I do not have space to review here. But the nub of the problem is this: Darwinian evolutionary theory is a functional theory. Stripped down to its essence, it has only one explanatory mechanism: novel biological forms and functions emerge through random variation of genes, and only persist if in some way they enhance the ability of organisms (or populations of organisms) to propagate their genes. Given this, for evolutionary theory to explain the existence of consciousness, it must show (a) how consciousness emerged through random variation in the genome of organisms in which it was previously absent, and (b) how that emergence enhanced the ability of those organisms to propagate their genes. Readers will recognize that (a) presents a “hard problem” much discussed in the consciousness studies literature. But why is there a problem with (b)? . . .”

Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness? A Review of Humphrey, N. (2010) Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness. London: Quercus, ISBN 9781849162371



“The evolution of consciousness”

Max Velmans, Goldsmiths, University of London, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London SE146NW.
In D. Canter and D. Tunbull (eds.) Biologising the Social Sciences. Special Issue of Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences (prepublication version)

Abstract:
There have been various attempts to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to an understanding of the human condition within psychology and the social sciences. This paper evaluates whether Darwinian Theory can explain human consciousness. Starting with a brief definition of phenomenal consciousness and the central features of evolutionary theory, the paper examines whether random variations in the genome that confer a selective, reproductive advantage can explain both the emergence of consciousness and its varied forms. To inform the discussion, the paper reviews what is known about the conditions for consciousness within the human mind/brain, understood in both structural (neural) terms and functional terms (in terms of human information processing), and concludes that “random variations in the genome” provide no explanatory mechanism for why some neural activities (but not others) are accompanied by consciousness. The paper then evaluates the many functional advantages that have been proposed for various forms of phenomenal consciousness once they emerge, and concludes that, on close examination, phenomenal experiences themselves do not carry out the information processing functions attributed to them, which challenges the Darwinian requirement that they could only have persisted (once emergent) if they enhanced reproductive fitness. The paper turns finally to what can be said about wider distribution of consciousness in non-humans, contrasting discontinuity theories with continuity theories. Discontinuity theories argue for a critical functional transition that “switches on consciousness” while continuity theories argue for a gradual transition in consciousness from unrecognisable to recognisable. All theories accept that there is an intimate, natural relationship of conscious experiences with their associated material forms. Consequently, as the material forms evolve, their associated experiences co-evolve — suggesting an indirect mechanism by which the emergence of species-specific forms of consciousness can be influenced by Darwinian evolution. It also allows a non-reductive understanding of human consciousness within the social sciences.

Evolution of consciousness

 

[Constance]

btw my 500w words:

Hierarchical construct theory and the three classes of truth-informed justification

Nagel expresses the view that an objective–subjective bridge is attainable in principle but will take centuries to construct. The Hierarchical Construct Theory (HCT)—a synthesis of 30 years of work—is a deductive-nomological explanation of subjectivity in objective terms: the explanation does not tell us ‘what it is like’ to be a particular creature, but approximates instead in allowing us to understand why creatures have a ‘what it is like’ and why their phenomenal experience is qualitative. The solution is a difficult pill for philosophers to swallow, more so for requiring a revisionary approach to the orthodoxy on knowledge, representation and information, but if the world’s foremost conference on consciousness is not deemed suitable to host such a radical discovery, then I don’t know what is:
In its traditional analysis, knowledge is belief-dependent; one can know a fact to be a fact only in virtue of one’s belief that it is so. Furthermore, if someone can believe that P only if they possess concepts sufficient for grasping P, belief, and therefore knowledge on this account, must be concept-dependent. However, the natural world provides numerous examples indicating that not all facts need be formulated conceptually. Survival justification of, for example adapted physiology, is not predicated on belief (e.g., the fact of the sun's location is determined by the biochemistry of heliotropic plants). HCT explicates a hierarchy of knowledge classes. Each evolve justified and meaningful operant mechanisms through an environmental discourse and thereby present their competing value-driven motivations for action.
Philosophical orthodoxy does not normally extend representation to biochemical and neurological mechanisms, restricting it to semantically evaluable mental objects, e.g. concepts, ideas, percepts, rules and thoughts. Alternatively, HCT argues that there are causally distinct classes of representation e.g., biochemical mechanisms have a qualitative and relevant correspondence with the environment. However, such mechanisms are not representational of a qualitative environment, but have themselves become comparatively qualitative and relevant as an adaptive response to an otherwise qualitatively sterile world: physiologies do not represent, as orthodoxy has it, the fact of what things are but what environmental features have come to mean for species' survival: as with knowledge, there are causally distinct classes of representation.
The commonly held view is that information is a commodity that exists 'out there' independently of agency, awaiting operational systems capable of constructing meaning. Those in consciousness studies who promulgate this view find that the fundamental question underpinning their naturalist ambitions is how meaning is created from the external pool of environmental information. Alternatively, HCT explains that the informational meaning attributed to environmental interaction is entirely dependent on the evolved informational construct class of the observing agency.
The deductive component, on which these reinterpretations are founded, corresponds with empirical multidisciplinary findings. The nomological component extrapolates from Newton's third law to explain why there must be emergence of hierarchical causally distinct construct classes and why their forms evolve

@Pharoah, I think this abstract is very well written and I hope it gains you a slot at the next Tucson conference.

While browsing papers and books by Jeffrey Gray and similar theorists I read up a bit on Revonsuo, author of a much noticed book of a few years ago -- Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. He comes down on the side of construing the 'world' in which consciousness occurs and operates as a 'virtual reality' produced in the brain out of a hierarchy of biological and neurological processes and systems. I'm speculating that the misunderstanding of HCT by your ms reviewers might in part have been the result of their familiarity with Revonsuo's theory and assumptions that HCT is close to it. It might be a good idea to make clear at the outset the differences between your thinking and Revonsuo's.

 

[Pharoah]

@Pharoah, I think this abstract is very well written and I hope it gains you a slot at the next Tucson conference.

While browsing papers and books by Jeffrey Gray and similar theorists I read up a bit on Revonsuo, author of a much noticed book of a few years ago -- Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon. He comes down on the side of construing the 'world' in which consciousness occurs and operates as a 'virtual reality' produced in the brain out of a hierarchy of biological and neurological processes and systems. I'm speculating that the misunderstanding of HCT by your ms reviewers might in part have been the result of their familiarity with Revonsuo's theory and assumptions that HCT is close to it. It might be a good idea to make clear at the outset the differences between your thinking and Revonsuo's.

@Soupie and @Constance:
You have both provided links to some pertinent reading for me. Many of the ideas seem to be of a similar 'species' to HCT. Also, their journal of publication may help me identify suitable venues for my own work.

 

[Soupie]

I found a response to Gray's theory by Max Velmans, extended in two later papers, all linked below.

Constance, that's well understood. However, the same "response" is pertinent to Panksepp's model, @Pharoah 's model, and Thompson/Varela's model. Neurophysiological models of consciousness have yet to fully explain the origin and nature of consciousness.

I didn't present Gray's work as an explanation of the origin and nature of consciousness per se. It's helpful for me in my own line of work, but it also parallels much of Panksepp's and Pharoah's work.

In the Corr paper above where he outlines Grays RST, he quite clearly states that while Gray has identified neurophysiological systems that mediate emotions, the origin of phenomenal emotion is still NOT known... And that this is the case for all neurophysiological models.

This is in contrast to Pharoah and HCT, which I wanted to point out to Pharoah. RST and HCT are similar in many cases, but whereas RST acknowledges that the origin and nature of phenomenal emotion is still unknown, Pharoah posits that HCT does provide an answer. As I've noted, I don't see that it does.

(Also, it baffles me that you found the article rough going... It was one of the easiest, most straightforward articles posted here haha. No mention of "information" or use of hyphenated words like "what-is" or "lived-experience.")

 

[Soupie]

This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other third-person perspective models. To approach such questions the first-person nature of consciousness needs to be taken seriously in combination with third-person models of the brain.

The more I read about models of consciousness, the more I realize how solid a handle Velmans has on the topic.

A purely neurophysiological account of consciousness can only hope to identify correlates and relationships between physiological processes and consciousness. Neither can be reduced to the other.

To inform the discussion, the paper reviews what is known about the conditions for consciousness within the human mind/brain, understood in both structural (neural) terms and functional terms (in terms of human information processing), and concludes that “random variations in the genome” provide no explanatory mechanism for why some neural activities (but not others) are accompanied by consciousness.

Neurophenomenology, which considers both 3rd person and 1st person perspectives, has not even been able to answer this question. Conscious experience is strongly correlated with global brain waves (synchronized neural spiking).

But this does not provide a mechanistic, cause-effect explanation.

This is where IIT enters the picture. IIT posits that neurons interacting in an integrated manner instantiate consciousness.

However, integrated interaction would seem (at the moment) to be more of a correlation (albeit a tight one) than an explanation. This is because one could conceive of integrated neurons working just fine in the absence of any associated consciousness.

This is the point Velmans is making about all neurophysiological models. Even those, like RST and Neurophenomenology, that consider subjective experience.

The paper then evaluates the many functional advantages that have been proposed for various forms of phenomenal consciousness once they emerge, and concludes that, on close examination, phenomenal experiences themselves do not carry out the information processing functions attributed to them, which challenges the Darwinian requirement that they could only have persisted (once emergent) if they enhanced reproductive fitness.

Hm, this is interesting, and Ill have to read more about this. (I think I may have already read this, actually.)

There is a difference between saying a) phenomenal experiences carry information, and b) phenomenal experiences are information.

For example, I don't think the mind is an information processing system; I think the brain is an information processing system and that the mind is the information it embodies.

Recently I read an article in which Searle was quoted as saying that consciousness cannot be information, because information requires consciousness to identify it.

I disagree with this conception of information.

Imagine a mechanical lock that is sensitive to EM waves. When EM waves in the 200-450 frequency range hit it, it will unlock. All other EM waves will have no effect.

When an EM wave with a frequency of 300 strikes the lock, it opens.

Has this process involved information? While Searle might say no, I say yes. The "form" of the EM wave "informed" the lock which is sensitive to EM waves. When the "form" of the sensor was changed by the "form" of the EM wave, it opened.

As @Pharoah has noted, and I wholly agree with, the 300 EM wave carries zero innate "information" about unlocking. Any "meaning" that 200-450 frequency EM waves have is innate to the lock, not the waves themselves which are information/meaning neutral.

This is information processing, and involves no conscious awareness on the part of the lock.

Discontinuity theories argue for a critical functional transition that “switches on consciousness” while continuity theories argue for a gradual transition in consciousness from unrecognisable to recognisable. All theories accept that there is an intimate, natural relationship of conscious experiences with their associated material forms. Consequently, as the material forms evolve, their associated experiences co-evolve — suggesting an indirect mechanism by which the emergence of species-specific forms of consciousness can be influenced by Darwinian evolution. It also allows a non-reductive understanding of human consciousness within the social sciences.

It seems that based on our limited understanding of what-is, that Velmans is correct that "continuity" theories give us models standing on the firmedt footing.

But let's be clear: continuity theories are panpsychist theories.

Many people reject panpsychism out of hand. They think it's ludicrous. However, they give us nothing in return. While it seems self-evident that consciousness arises with life, there are no philosophical nor natural models of how this might be.

On the other hand, my "informational" approach to consciousness could easily be incorporated into a Continuity theory. (@Pharoah may want to consider conceptualizing HCT as a Continuity theory, which I think he could.)

In short, material "forms" are in a continual state of dynamic evolution (change) by way of continuous interaction or "informing" one another. Consciousness is this informing (or information).

As the forms evolve, their informing (experiencing) co-evolves.

This essay by David Bohm speaks well to this process: http://www.implicity.org/Downloads/Bohm_meaning+information.pdf

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
I get an inclining from you post above that you might be seeing information the way I speak of it, namely, as dependent in the nature of the dynamic construction of the agency interacting with the environment, not as something that exists in the environment independently of agency. That would make two of us in the world with this view!
Which brings me to the Velman paper linked above on "the evolution of consciousness". If you read it from my way of thinking about information rather than his way (the orthodoxy), it is very revealing. All the problems of accountability that he critiques are caused by this orthodox way people think of information—as a commodity that "a system" integrates, organises, uses etc.
I gave up on the RST paper, for my faults.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, responding to your two posts today:

As Velmans argues, consciousness in its evolution enables an increasingly vital and significant (i.e., meaningful} activity on the part of the being that possesses it, that has recognized the experience of the world that consciousness makes possible. This activity exceeds the passive reception of ‘information’ the body receives from the physical world and enables the interactive relationship of conscious beings with the physical world encountered phenomenally, in terms of that which conscious beings sense, first prereflectively, and in our situation, our level of development of consciousness, build upon reflectively.


As experienced, the physical qualities of the world we find ourselves existing in call forth a range of responses from us – aesthetic responses, moral responses, and intellectual responses that constitute the complex nature of the world we exist in, in which we attempt, as here, to understand the origins and nature of our own conscious intercourse with the physical and cultural worlds we are part of, and to which we each contribute in our own ways. Human experience of the world has produced the manifold cultures and societies created in our species’ history, the various ways in which our existence has been understood and expressed. We cannot understand ourselves today without understanding our species’ history and its varieties of expression of human be-ing in the natural and cultural worlds we have constructed on the earth.


In short, human consciousness creates as well as receives ‘information’ in its world-making, and what we do with the capacities of our conscious being is at least as significant as that which we receive from the affordances of physical and biological evolution, which include ‘information’ of the type that interests you most. That information is far from the whole story of what we are and what we are responsible for {what we are called upon to do} in our responses to our existential situations in the present-day world we have constructed on the earth.


Velmans makes clear, in the paper you have posted extracts from [“The Evolution of Consciousness”] that we add to the complexity of the world we have constructed through our experiences in and of it, rather than remaining the expressions of ‘information’ out of which we have developed our capacities for experience, creativity, and thought. Thus it is, for me, missing Velman’s point, to remain committed to the viewpoint that ‘consciousness is information’ in the sense that you typically use the term ‘information’ – as an objective determinant of what we are and what our possibilities are. Lately you also recognize, to an extent, that consciousness is ‘phenomenal’, open to and interacting with the phenomenal expressions of the being of the physical world. But you have not yet developed your appreciation of this evident fact to a point at which your characterization of human experience moves beyond your essentially objective (and I think reductive) application of ‘information’ as you construe it to the individual experience of being out of which we (and other animals) build our sense (our understanding) of our position/situation in the being of the environing physical world.


Consciousness Studies as an interdisciplinary field increasingly recognizes the need for both biological/evolutionary and philosophical contributions to the subject of our mutual inquiry. We need minimally to understand how consciousness evolved in biological life [and if possible to ultimately understand how life extends interactive protoconscious processes in the physical universe that has produced life and its increasing capacity for consciousness]. And we need to understand the difference that consciousness makes in the evolution we ourselves and other animals contribute to in bringing about a world (on earth, and doubtless elsewhere) in which we humans attempt to understand what we ourselves are, revealed in the range of our responses to our being-here. As Velmans makes clear, understanding informational processes in nature takes us only so far in accounting for what we experience phenomenally and what we create out of our experience -- how and in what directions we take our developing understanding of our consciousness and the nature of being.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie
I get an inclining from you post above that you might be seeing information the way I speak of it, namely, as dependent in the nature of the dynamic construction of the agency interacting with the environment, not as something that exists in the environment independently of agency. That would make two of us in the world with this view!
Which brings me to the Velman paper linked above on "the evolution of consciousness". If you read it from my way of thinking about information rather than his way (the orthodoxy), it is very revealing. All the problems of accountability that he critiques are caused by this orthodox way people think of information—as a commodity that "a system" integrates, organises, uses etc.

Hmm. I don't see Velmans as articulating 'the orthodox view' of consciousness, which has seemed to me (prior to and extending into the 25 years to date of Consciousness Studies) to be, rather, the dominant materialist/reductive viewpoint of science in general and of analytical philosophy that has been influenced by the presuppositions of materialist science into our time. I see Velmans attempting to integrate the reductive thinking expressed in classical neuroscience, computational science, information theory, and the analytical philosophy that privileges them with the newer efforts to understand consciousness in terms of its evolutionary history and its open-ended reliance on direct phenomenal experience in and of the world to ground itself and its development.

I gave up on the RST paper, for my faults.

Do you mean you're abandoning your hierarchical construct theory? I don't think you should. Instead I think you should use it as the basis of a longer paper (or two papers or a book) to explore the complexities of consciousness that Velmans points to.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, above you wrote that "the same "response" [that Velmans made to Gray's approach] is pertinent to Panksepp's model, @Pharoah 's model, and Thompson/Varela's model."

Can you show why Velman would respond to Panksepp, Pharoah, and Thompson/Varela in the same way?

I'm still not sure what Pharoah's 'model' is at present since it has been undergoing development and restatement in recent months, but I can't see why you would or should expect Velmans to react to Panksepp's evolutionary project and Thompson/Varela's neurophenomenology project in the same way he has reacted to Gray, which you seem to imply. Can you explain your reasoning there? That is, what is it in Panksepp's and Thompson/Varela's projects that places them in the same category as Gray's project?

In fact, I think Velman's paper on the evolution of consciousness supports both Panksepp's contributions and Thompson/Varela's contributions as productive of necessary changes in consciousness studies.

 

[Pharoah]

@Constance
1. I don't think that either @Soupie or I think of information in the way you might suggest reading your post above. I might be wrong... soupie might respond.
2. I never said velman expresses the orthodox view on consciousness!
3. Not reading all of a paper on RST = abandoning HCT—my life's work? I don't follow.
4. My theory has not changed over the last few months. It is identical to the theory I came up with in its original form.

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah, it appears that I misunderstood what you wrote in your previous post, but I thought 'his' referred to Velman in this sentence: "If you read it from my way of thinking about information rather than his way (the orthodoxy) . . .".

Re RST/HCT, I read too fast to identify the acronym you used.

I have to admit that while I've sensed a change in your theory, I haven't been able to pin it down.

Re your first note, I'm not clear at all about how you and Soupie understand and define 'information'.

Sorry for the misinterpretations and hopeful to hear a definition of 'information' that you and Soupie agree upon.