Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[Soupie]

It seems to me that it is not 'information' interacting with information off-stage in the background of life [inside the neurons] that can describe or account for the activity, the seeking behavior, the felt texture of existence, and the semiotic systems expressed from it out of which individuals and species take their stage of consciousness as far as it can go.

Constance, what you continue to fail to recognize is that information is always physically embodied (leading some to say that information is physical).

However, it is also known that information is not the messenger.

This is an apparent contradiction. The mainstream says: information is physical, but it transcends its physical carrier.

Thus, information presents a natural duality into the world.

There is no "abstract" information floating around in the background. Information is always embodied by physical processes, and yet it manages to transcend these physical processes. It is a mystery, is it not?

The similarities to consciousness and mind—the embodiment and transcendence, indeed the duality—is striking.

It may turn out that mind is not constituted of embodied information, but it most certainly has not and can not be ruled out at the present moment.

 

[Soupie]

@Constance

And by the way, my criticism of HCT and affinity for an informational approach to mind are not related. It's not clear to me that you recognize that.

 

[Pharoah]

Hm, I was really hoping you would attempt to answer this Pharoah. However, the reality is that no one has yet been able to.

Your problem Pharoah—and thus the problem with HCT—is that you equate these two things. However, one is objective and physical (mechanisms) and the other is subjective and phenomenal (representations).

This is where HCT gets stuck. (But it's where every model gets stuck, of course. It's the explanatory gap.)

Until a model of consciousness can bridge this gap, we must needs keep looking.

It's not clear to me Pharoah, that you fully understand this. That's not an insult, just an observation.

To bridge this gap, we need more experience/observation of the world and perhaps new concepts to explain these experiences/observations.

You quote yourself saying,
"Qualitatively relevant mechanisms? You just said the representations were the things that were qualitatively relevant. So which is it, @Pharoah?"
"Hm, I was really hoping you would attempt to answer this Pharoah."

Answer what? It isn't a question.

then you say,
Your problem Pharoah is that you equate these two things. "
I am assuming the two things referred to are, 'mechanisms' and 'representations'
Why can't a mechanism be representational?

 

[Constance]

Why can't a mechanism be representational?

Not sure if this is Pharoah's response or Pharoah quoting Soupie's response in the form of this question:

"Why can't a mechanism be representational?"

Would either or both of you explain a) what you mean by 'a mechanism', providing relevant neuronal examples, and b) what you mean by 'representation' in terms of what 'a neuronal mechanism' can 'represent'? Thanks in advance.

 

[Constance]

@Constance

And by the way, my criticism of HCT and affinity for an informational approach to mind are not related. It's not clear to me that you recognize that.

You're correct: I do not understand your argument with Pharoah. Perhaps you can clarify it, or perhaps he can.

 

[Constance]

Here is a brief eruption of verbiage proposing a hypothesis concerning 'the architecture of consciousness' (two pages total) placed online by an Oxford undergrad or recent graduate. To me it exemplifies the massive contradictions that are typical of amateur attempts to articulate the dominant theories that trickle down from physicalist neuroscience and information theory in our time. Why don't we read it and point out the contradictions each of sees in it? I think that would be a useful exercise in our attempting to sort out our own terminology and assumptions concerning consciousness and arrive at terms we can agree on..

cognitive architecture,consciousness

 

[Constance]

Here is another paper, somewhat better written and more detailed, also from a nonprofessional in science or philosphy, who claims to solve the hard problem with a 'matrix' theory of consciousness and world in which the world is not physical but a mental projection transmitted from Cosmic Consciousness through our consciousnesses.
He asks: " Can it be that what we call ‘the physical universe’ is really nothing more than an immaterial mathematical structure? Can it be that our sense data is produced by this mathematical structure?"

This paper might appeal to @Soupie. The author rarely uses the term 'information' but my impression is that his theory is an information theory. Can you clear this up for us Soupie?

TheProblemOfConsciousness

 

[Constance]

Finally, here is a third, brief, summary of the dominant current alternatives in neuroscience for a theory of consciousness, published by livescience.com a year ago. Let us weigh these together after reading the ideas expressed at the first two links, ok?

Scientists Closing in on Theory of Consciousness

 

[Randall]

Here is another paper, somewhat better written and more detailed, also from a nonprofessional in science or philosphy, who claims to solve the hard problem with a 'matrix' theory of consciousness and world in which the world is not physical but a mental projection transmitted from Cosmic Consciousness through our consciousnesses.
He asks: " Can it be that what we call ‘the physical universe’ is really nothing more than an immaterial mathematical structure? Can it be that our sense data is produced by this mathematical structure?"

This paper might appeal to @Soupie. The author rarely uses the term 'information' but my impression is that his theory is an information theory. Can you clear this up for us Soupie?

TheProblemOfConsciousness

And once again we go round and round ...

"Cartesian dualism is completely resolved in a worldview in which both on the inside and on the outside, there is nothing but immaterial consciousness ... ( TheProblemOfConsciousness )"
​

Back to subjective idealism, which is pure nonsense.

 

[Constance]

Here is another paper, somewhat better written and more detailed, also from a nonprofessional in science or philosophy, who claims to solve the hard problem with a 'matrix' theory of consciousness and world in which the world is not physical but a mental projection transmitted from Cosmic Consciousness through our consciousnesses.

He asks: " Can it be that what we call ‘the physical universe’ is really nothing more than an immaterial mathematical structure? Can it be that our sense data is produced by this mathematical structure?"

This paper might appeal to @Soupie, up to a point. The author rarely uses the term 'information' but my impression is that his theory is an information theory. Can you clear this up for us Soupie?

TheProblemOfConsciousness

Take this paragraph, for example:

"If we re-interpret the entire physical universe as The Grand Mathematical Structure, than this structure must as well exist in some kind of consciousness – not in our individual consciousness, but in a Consciousness external to ours – Cosmic Consciousness?

This Cosmic Consciousness literally thinks (more precisely – computes) The Grand Mathematical Structure into the existence at this very moment.The results of this computation/simulation are input into our individual consciousness as colors of 3-d image, sounds, smells, flavors, sensations of solidity, temperature, pleasure/pain, and all other sense data."

What is fudged in the enjambed 'term' "computation/simulation" is the transition we are looking for between information processing in our neurones and what we are enabled to experience in the world as a result of that processing with the support of our open multi-sensory bodily apparatus. It seems to me that there is a widespread misunderstanding and misapplication the term 'simulation' afoot in the vague ideas about consciousness and mind trickling down to we the people -- trickling down either from misunderstandings of neuroscientists, computational engineers, and information theorists or else from misunderstandings of their publicists. The misunderstanding seems to arise from the notion that AI can be constructed to 'simulate' human consciousness and mind out of computation -- information processing. A vast irrational leap in empirically based reasoning has taken place in current claims that our neurones can 'simulate' our contact with the physical world and our phenomenal experience in it and of it. More radical still is the associated claim that the physical world itself is only an illusion propagated by information processing in our neurones.

I wonder how estranged from their own experiential being humans must become to imagine a 'world' merely 'simulated' and still want to show up for it.

 

[Constance]

Here are a few observations very much to the point I'm pursuing made by Nagel in his most recent book, quoted in what I consider an inadequate review of the book:

"[Nagel asks] for an evolutionary explanation of why we are conscious. He does seem to recognize that evolution could, in theory, lead to the appearance of consciousness. He writes:

"Selection for physical reproductive fitness may have resulted in the appearance of organisms that are in fact conscious, and that have the observable variety of different specific kinds of consciousness [...]"

But then adds:

[...] but there is no physical explanation of why this is so--nor any other kind of explanation that we know of.

[...] To make facts of this kind intelligible, a postmaterialist theory would have to offer a unified explanation of how the physical and the mental characteristics of organisms developed together, and it would have to do so not just by adding a clause to the effect that the mental comes along with the physical as a bonus. [...] Explanation, unlike causation, is not just of an event, but of an event under a description. An explanation must show why it was likely that an event of that type occured."

It seems to me that Pharoah's HCT meets, or at least begins to meet, what Nagel calls for by recognizing the need for what N calls "an explanation" of an "event under a description," as opposed to an unsupported claim about "causation." It also seems to me that information theory falls short of what Nagel calls for, at least at this point in its development.

Can science explain consciousness? | BrainFacts.org Blog

 

[Constance]

A claim made by the blogger linked above:

"First, to be efficient and act, our brain needs to represent the world and update its model of reality."

The brain acts? No. Individuals act in the context of their visualized environment and their apparent situation in it, moment by moment. If the brain is able to "represent the world and update its model of reality" it is as the result of conscious experience in the world and reflection on that experience.

"It is this internal representation of the world that makes it such that we can close our eyes and still reach to objects."

Again, we could not do so if we had not already achieved through experience a 'representation' of things in our environment. Were we born sightless, we could not construe the nature and whereabouts of things (without assistance from others who are sighted, which would not provide us with full 'representation' of our environment and our location within it).

"We have inside of our head a very detailed and complex model of the world and when we generate actions, we sometimes rely solely on that model rather than on inputs from the outside world (like the reaching in the dark example)."

How did that "very detailed and complex model of the world"get into our 'head'?

" By creating feelings of perception when we see things for real and when we imagine them, the brain might simply be using subjective experience as a good common language to link real world inputs and imagined perceptions."

I'll leave that one for someone else to untangle.

 

[Soupie]

You quote yourself saying,
"Qualitatively relevant mechanisms? You just said the representations were the things that were qualitatively relevant. So which is it, @Pharoah?"
"Hm, I was really hoping you would attempt to answer this Pharoah."

Answer what? It isn't a question.

You've stated that it's the physical mechanisms that are qualitatively relevant. You've also stated that it's the phenomenal representations that are qualitatively relevant. So which is it?

You're talking in circles.

then you say,
Your problem Pharoah is that you equate these two things. "
I am assuming the two things referred to are, 'mechanisms' and 'representations'
Why can't a mechanism be representational?

It can, but it assumes consciousness.

For example, I could say a painting of a flower is a representation of a real flower. However, I can say that because I'm a conscious system.

Additionally, a painting of a flower can be a representation of a real flower, but that does't mean there is any phenomenal or qualitative property involved.

So a neurophysiological mechanism can certainly be representational of some aspect of the environment but:

(1) we can say that because we are conscious systems, and

(2) that doesn't explain how a phenomenal quality such as red, green, blue, etc. might be correlated with the representational mechanism.

 

[Constance]

Gerard Manley Hopkins

It was a hard thing to undo this knot.
The rainbow shines, but only in the thought
Of him that looks. Yet not in that alone,
For who makes rainbows by invention?
And many standing round a waterfall
See one bow each, yet not the same to all,
But each a hand's breadth further than the next.
The sun on falling waters writes the text
Which yet is in the eye or in the thought.
It was a hard thing to undo this knot.

 

[Constance]

You've stated that it's the physical mechanisms that are qualitatively relevant. You've also stated that it's the phenomenal representations that are qualitatively relevant. So which is it?

You're talking in circles.


It can, but it assumes consciousness.

For example, I could say a painting of a flower is a representation of a real flower. However, I can say that because I'm a conscious system.

Additionally, a painting of a flower can be a representation of a real flower, but that does't mean there is any phenomenal or qualitative property involved.

So a neurophysiological mechanism can certainly be representational of some aspect of the environment but:

(1) we can say that because we are conscious systems, and

(2) that doesn't explain how a phenomenal quality such as red, green, blue, etc. might be correlated with the representational mechanism.

@Soupie, could you clarify what your point to Pharoah is in this post?


Also, re the question "Why can't a mechanism be representational?" I asked either or both of you earlier today:

a) what you mean by 'a mechanism', providing relevant neuronal examples, and

b) what you mean by 'representation' in terms of what 'a neuronal mechanism' can 'represent'?

 

[Constance]

You've stated that it's the physical mechanisms that are qualitatively relevant. You've also stated that it's the phenomenal representations that are qualitatively relevant. So which is it?

You're talking in circles.

Why is this an either/or question? It seems that neuronal processing enables qualitative sensory experience, thus phenomenal experience. I don't yet see where "representation" comes into it. The conscious individual encounters an actual worldly environment that is present to him or her, not a 'represented environment'. Are you wanting to characterize neuronal processing as somehow conveying 'representations' of the environment to the conscious animal or person and to understand living beings as existing in a 'represented reality'?

 

[Constance]

. . . a painting of a flower can be a representation of a real flower, but that does't mean there is any phenomenal or qualitative property involved.

There surely was for the painter, and there surely is for the viewer of the painting, doubled in the case of the latter. If I'm not understanding what it is you're getting at, please help me out here.

 

[Pharoah]

You've stated that it's the physical mechanisms that are qualitatively relevant. You've also stated that it's the phenomenal representations that are qualitatively relevant. So which is it?

You're talking in circles.


It can, but it assumes consciousness.

For example, I could say a painting of a flower is a representation of a real flower. However, I can say that because I'm a conscious system.

Additionally, a painting of a flower can be a representation of a real flower, but that does't mean there is any phenomenal or qualitative property involved.

So a neurophysiological mechanism can certainly be representational of some aspect of the environment but:

(1) we can say that because we are conscious systems, and

(2) that doesn't explain how a phenomenal quality such as red, green, blue, etc. might be correlated with the representational mechanism.

@Soupie I have searched the archive of this forum discussion of 3,900 pages and the 18 pages of my paper.
In it I do not state "that it's the phenomenal representations that are qualitatively relevant." In fact I use the term "phenomenal representation" only once in total.

So before you make these kind of assertions, you need to check your sources and references otherwise you will be misquoting and representing people.
I have told you on two occasions now that you misrepresent my text.

So, "talking in circles"?
No I'm not.
I am not! You are talking in circles because you have square pegs my friend.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
you say,
"Your problem Pharoah is that you equate these two things. " [those being, mechanisms and representations]
When I say,
"Why can't a mechanism be representational?"
You say
"It can"
So my "problem" isn't a problem then is it. They can be equated.

You say
"... it assumes consciousness"
That's a nonsense statement. "it" refers to what? The 'it' is in reference to my question,
"Why can't a mechanism be representational?" where no mention is made of consciousness.

Not only do you make up what I say, but you put ideas in your head that you attribute to me that are not mine. And then you question me about them.

One thing I have learnt is that I need to provide a glossary of terms.

You say,
"So a neurophysiological mechanism can certainly be representational of some aspect of the environment but:
(1) we can say that because we are conscious systems"

What is your point here? What is significant about the word "but"... you make the first statement about mechanisms being representational (all well and good), "but"...? I don't get it. That these mechanisms wouldn't be representational if humans did not exist... that if there were no conscious systems in existence, mechanisms would not be representational?

 

[Pharoah]

@Constance
"a) what you mean by 'a mechanism', providing relevant neuronal examples, and
b) what you mean by 'representation' in terms of what 'a neuronal mechanism' can 'represent'?

a) Say a neuron receives 1 impulse per second, and 10 impulses per second leaving it. This could be a functional mechanism because a signal input has been augmented. Another example: the regulation of hormone levels is by biochemical mechanisms. The maintenance of stable pH levels is a biochemical mechanism. They serve a function.
Both the mechanisms themselves and their functional capabilities are likely to be very complex. Needless to say, neuronal networks are connected with organs throughout the body, and with themselves. There are feedback, threshold, diminution and augmentation mechanisms. I am no expert. It is the principle that I run with.
b) what do mechanisms "represent"? These mechanisms have evolved because they enhance survival potential. Why? because they are pertinent. What do I mean by pertinent? Some environmental conditions are harmful others beneficial to survival. Any mechanism whose function is responsive to those harmful or beneficial conditions—either directly or indirectly—promotes survival. In this way these mechanisms are "qualitatively relevant" (or pertinent) to survival. There is a correspondence between the qualitative relevance of mechanisms and the environment. This is how I get the concept of 'representation' into the model.
The qualitative relevance of particular environmental features is represented in the physiology of organisms.