Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

[Constance]

An introductory extract from Part III, section 6 of the above text:

"6—
Outside the Subject:
Merleau-Ponty's Chiasmic Vision

To understand and judge a society, one has to penetrate its basic structure to the human bond upon which it is built.
Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror[1]

[Vision] is that gift of nature which Spirit [l'Esprit] was called upon to make use of beyond all hope.
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception[2]

With the first vision, . . . there is initiation, . . . the opening of a dimension that can never again be closed.
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible[3]

We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of the kind of individuality imposed on us for several centuries.
Michel Foucault, "The Subject and Power"[4]

What do I bring to the problem of the same and the other? This: that the same be the other than the other, and identity difference of difference.
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (VIE 264, VIF 318)


I—
Inheritance
The inheritance of a philosopher's thought necessarily involves an intricately mediated reception. To inherit a philosopher's thought is always a question of inhabiting its life, its nooks and crannies: questioning its hesitations, its doubts, its intrigues, its excitement, its deepest silences—taking up what remains unthought and carrying that forward. Inheritance is never repetition, but the gratitude that consists in responding to the challenge of its vision, and in assuming responsibility for that which remains unthought within the matter that was most deeply engaged.

Here, then, we shall be continuing a certain phenomenological archaeology, not so much concerned to excavate more deeply, but rather to extend dimensions of the site, uncovering, recovering a significance upon which Merleau-Ponty only touched. It will be a question of making contact with moral and spiritual sources, elaborating the moral significance of the
prepersonal dimension of perceptual experience that he brings to light when his phenomenology deconstructs the metaphysical narrative of subjectivity and breaches the defenses of the subject-object structure.

The premise of this chapter is that we need to return to the sources of moral vision carried in and by the body of felt experience. Merleau-Ponty's work makes it possible for us to understand this return as a process of making contact, through our experience of embodiment, with our participation in an elemental flesh, an intercorporeal flesh of intertwinings and reversibilities. Because of the moral predispositions already inscribed in the flesh, making contact with this dimension of our body of experience and recovering our felt sense of the flesh, of our being-flesh, could perhaps solicit a heightened sense of justice, of responsibility for the other—and motivate a different moral vision. . . . . . ."


{personal note: I have to object at this point to this statement in the second paragraph above: "Here, then, we shall be continuing a certain phenomenological archaeology, not so much concerned to excavate more deeply, but rather to extend dimensions of the site, uncovering, recovering a significance upon which Merleau-Ponty only touched." In my experience of reading MP, he more than 'touched on' moral elements of native, evolved, human consciousness and their significance for the philosophy of mind and being as developed by Heidegger, Levinas, Scheler, and other phenomenological philosophers manifestly including himself. But I have yet to see the extent to which Levin develops his own extensions of phenomenology in this text . . .}

 

[Constance]

Section 1 of Part 3 of The Philosopher's Gaze -- entitled "Descartes's Window" -- is a tour de force. Link:

The Philosopher's Gaze

 

[Randall]

Section 1 of Part 3 of The Philosopher's Gaze -- entitled "Descartes's Window" -- is a tour de force. Link: The Philosopher's Gaze

As a complete work, I'm sure it must be absolutely wonderful for some, but it doesn't seem to add-up to anything in particular, except perhaps an homage to the old and very old-boys club. There was once a woman philosopher who apparently inspired some of the old boys though: Hypatia of Alexandria

What idea in particular about Section 1 of Part 3 stands out or resonates with you?

 

[smcder]

As a complete work, I'm sure it must be absolutely wonderful for some, but it doesn't seem to add-up to anything in particular, except perhaps an homage to the old and very old-boys club. There was once a woman philosopher who apparently inspired some of the old boys though: Hypatia of Alexandria

What idea in particular about Section 1 of Part 3 stands out or resonates with you?

Thanks @Constance and @Soupie for all the good reading ... I'll have to catch up but it may be the weekend.

S

 

[smcder]

Section 1 of Part 3 of The Philosopher's Gaze -- entitled "Descartes's Window" -- is a tour de force. Link:

The Philosopher's Gaze

I have a "Voice Aloud" reader and will listen to this on the way to work ...

 

[smcder]

Section 1 of Part 3 of The Philosopher's Gaze -- entitled "Descartes's Window" -- is a tour de force. Link:

The Philosopher's Gaze

These texts take a lot of "horsepower" to get through ... wonderfully rich - I had several "ahhh ... I get it moments" very nice ... shifting of world views with Bacon ... The New Organon ...

 

[smcder]

Section 1 of Part 3 of The Philosopher's Gaze -- entitled "Descartes's Window" -- is a tour de force. Link:

The Philosopher's Gaze

the problem with audio is going back to find quotes ... will have to do that later ... but the shift to induction through Bacon's N. Organon ... and the in adequacy of this task for "reality" and the complex interactions with have with one another ... with meaning ...

this piece by Bacon has always fascinated me ...

XXVIII. Sphinx; Or Science. Bacon, Francis. Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. 1857

 

[Constance]

As a complete work, I'm sure it must be absolutely wonderful for some, but it doesn't seem to add-up to anything in particular, except perhaps an homage to the old and very old-boys club. There was once a woman philosopher who apparently inspired some of the old boys though: Hypatia of Alexandria

What idea in particular about Section 1 of Part 3 stands out or resonates with you?

I believe that with effort (the effort of reading in openness to the text) you will eventually be able to understand it. I realize that you are not a reader of philosophy, and that phenomenological philosophy will be extremely strange to you at the outset. It's your choice whether you will make the effort.

But if you need an overview of the author's meaning, as he analyses the historical changes in consciousness and comprehension of 'being' from the pre-Socratics to the modern period -- well worth reading for itself in terms of historical insight into the human history of consciousness and thinking -- the following extract from the end of the text might orient you somewhat:

". . .The ancients allowed themselves to be, as it were, "exposed" to what presences. Their way of being was noble in its humility. Thus it would seem that, for the Greeks—and indeed, I would say, for all premodern peoples—the being of the human being can never be reduced to the condition of the subiectum , because the truth of their being was unconcealment, its participation in the interplay between the realm of the visible and the realm of the invisible—which means that it necessarily eluded total reification and its mastery and violence.[82]

"Greek man," says Heidegger, "is as the one who apprehends [der Vernehmer ] that which is, and this is why in the age of the Greeks, the world cannot become picture."[83] In spite of this difference, Heidegger does not exalt the Greeks, putting them in some otherworldly paradise: it is crucial to the story he wants to tell that we see how the future, our present, was already in a certain sense implicit in the Greek way of looking: "Yet, on the other hand, that the beingness of whatever is, is defined by Plato as eidos [aspect, view] is the presupposition, destined far in advance and long ruling indirectly in concealment, for the world having to become picture."[84]

Unlike the Greek way of "apprehending," modern "representing" is a strategy for control. It means "to bring what is present at hand [das Vorhandene ] before oneself as something standing over against, to relate it to oneself, to the one representing it, and to force it back into this relationship to oneself as the normative realm."[85] To "represent," he says, is "to set out before oneself and to set forth in relation to oneself. Through this, whatever is comes to stand as object."[86] To picture, to represent, is to represent, to present again, in the sense that what presences, what gives itself to be beheld, is not received, not accepted, as it presences, as it gives itself, but is, rather, subjected to a certain delay, a certain postponement, a certain deferral, so that the ego-logical subject can give what is presencing to itself , can, in other words, make itself the giver of what it receives. In this way, the subject exercises maximum epistemic control. We might say that the emblem of such an attitude—the correlate in the realm of vision—is the stare. I think Heidegger himself may have had this analysis in mind when, in Being and Time , he called attention to "a fixed staring at something that is purely present-at-hand" in the context of a narrative concerned with the historical transformations undergone by the contemplative vision (theorein ) of the ancient Greek philosophers.[87]"

 

[Randall]

I believe that with effort (the effort of reading in openness to the text) you will eventually be able to understand it. I realize that you are not a reader of philosophy, and that phenomenological philosophy will be extremely strange to you at the outset. It's your choice whether you will make the effort.

As I try to get across now and then, for me personally, It's not that I haven't contemplated the concepts well enough to get them. It's that don't commit all the minutiae to memory because it's a far too heavy and non-essential burden to drag along behind me. I extract the ideas that will move me further along the path and move on. So if you have a specific point you'd like to discuss, just skip right to it. If I need a refresher on context I'll be sure to ask.

To picture, to represent, is to represent, to present again, in the sense that what presences, what gives itself to be beheld, is not received, not accepted, as it presences, as it gives itself, but is, rather, subjected to a certain delay, a certain postponement, a certain deferral, so that the ego-logical subject can give what is presencing to itself , can, in other words, make itself the giver of what it receives. In this way, the subject exercises maximum epistemic control. We might say that the emblem of such an attitude—the correlate in the realm of vision—is the stare. I think Heidegger himself may have had this analysis in mind when, in Being and Time , he called attention to "a fixed staring at something that is purely present-at-hand" in the context of a narrative concerned with the historical transformations undergone by the contemplative vision (theorein ) of the ancient Greek philosophers.[87]"

OK. We might look at that and make a comparison to Soup's references to the "interface theory", and how the "picture" is the "interface" and the "stare" might be seen as an externally reinforced sensory feedback loop. But the point for you about this perspective is?

Here's another link you might like: Heidegger, “The Age of World Picture,” annotation by JeeHee Hong

 

[Constance]

OK. We might look at that and make a comparison to Soup's references to the "interface theory", and how the "picture" is the "interface" and the "stare" might be seen as an externally reinforced sensory feedback loop. But the point for you about this perspective is?

--> in short, that the 'interface' theory @Soupie propounds [based in Hoffman's interface theory] cannot recognize and thus cannot begin to account for the actual open-ended, lived, phenomenal interface between embodied consciousnesses and their environing 'worlds', out of which all conceptual thinking becomes possible and proliferates in our species' history [as, no doubt, in the experiential histories of evolving species elsewhere in the universe']. We should by all means investigate and compare all current hypotheses proposing 'interface' hypotheses in the effort to comprehend what consciousness is. I hope we will do that here in the near-future.

Here's another link you might like: Heidegger, “The Age of World Picture,” annotation by JeeHee Hong

I recommend that Heidegger's essay be read in order to evaluate the contribution of this two-paragraph 'annotation', whose author seems to be not-well-informed concerning Heidegger's meaning in that essay or in his philosophy as a whole.

 

[Randall]

--> in short, that the 'interface' theory @Soupie propounds [based in Hoffman's interface theory] cannot recognize and thus cannot begin to account for the actual open-ended, lived, phenomenal interface between embodied consciousnesses and their environing 'worlds', out of which all conceptual thinking becomes possible and proliferates in our species' history [as, no doubt, in the experiential histories of evolving species elsewhere in the universe']. We should by all means investigate and compare all current hypotheses proposing 'interface' hypotheses in the effort to comprehend what consciousness is. I hope we will do that here in the near-future.

OK that's a good start. Now I think we can get somewhere and you will be able to help me in a meaningful way. To do that we need to be sure we're on the same page. So let's do that in steps: By "open-ended, lived, phenomenal interface", what exactly are you referring to there? I've mentioned to Soup before that Hoffman takes consciousness as extant to begin with, and therefore doesn't speak to it's genesis. Are we referring to the same thing there, or are you talking about our inner perceptual world, which is yet one step away from the question of consciousness itself?

 

[smcder]

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday.

I implore you to read the linked paper, Taylor Carman, "The Body in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty," because it presents far more clearly and comprehensively than I have been capable of doing the ability of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological philosophy to resolve the dualistic thinking -- and the 'mind-body problem' -- that continue to permeate most theories of consciousness and perception.

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/188_s05/pdf/Carman_Body.pdf

SKM Husserl dismisses canonical mind/body views as fatally compromised by naturalistic presuppositions

Carman "When he (Husserl) does refer explicitly to metaphysical debates about the mind, it is only to dismiss the canonical views as fatally compromised by naturalistic presuppositions.

In The Crisis of European Sciences, for example, he rejects Cartesian substance dualism, commenting on the “absurdity” of “this centuries-old prejudice,”7 as well as Spinozistic dual-aspect theories, such as Wundt’s.8 This is not to say that Husserl was a closet materialist,9 for what he criticizes in dualist and monist positions alike is their failure to rise to the level of transcendental reflection and thus recognize pure consciousness as an autonomous domain of self-contained phenomena: “consciousness, regarded in its ‘purity,’ amounts to a self-contained context of being, a context of absolute being, into which nothing can penetrate and from which nothing can escape” (Id I, 93).

• read Husserl's pure consciousness as an autonomous domain of self-contained phenomena in terms of his professed "ontological neutrality"

SKM but Carman argues that there is "an undeniable spirit of dualism" in H's phenomenology:

Notwithstanding Husserl’s professed ontological neutrality, then, there is an undeniable spirit of dualism animating his phenomenology, indeed his theory of intentionality is predicated on what he regards as a strict categorical distinction between consciousness and reality. The phenomenological epochê or transcendental reduction,10 for example, consists in bracketing or abstracting from all objects transcendent to consciousness in order to reflect on the contents immanent within it, contents that are responsible for directing our awareness to anything transcendent.11 An object is “transcendent,” in Husserl’s sense, if it is given to consciousness perspectivally, or in “adumbrations” (Abschattungen), so that only one side or aspect of the thing is immediately present to us at any one time. An object is “immanent” if it is given to consciousness all at once, transparently, so that no perspectival variation mediates our apprehension of it.

• immanent - objects are given transparently and all at once to consciouness
• transcendent objects are given perspectivally (only one side or aspect is immediately present to us at any one time)

Physical bodies and worldly states of affairs are transcendent objects, for Husserl, and so too are the abstract entities of mathematics and formal ontology.12 The contents of consciousness are immanent, by contrast, since we each have immediate, transparent access to our own (current) thoughts and experiences.

SKM this is most helpful ... I know you have posted this paper before, I believe, but this feels like a new reading for me ...

 

[smcder]

Taylor Carman

"Husserl did not simply advance these claims as dogmatic metaphysical assertions, and we should bear in mind their purely descriptive intent. Still, even at a purely descriptive level, phenomenologically speaking, a more steadfast commitment to the spirit of dualism is hard to imagine. Moreover, it is precisely this conceptual dualism, this idea that consciousness and reality are separated by an “abyss of meaning,” that prevents Husserl from acknowledging the body as the original locus of intentional phenomena in perceptual experience."

For Merleau-Ponty, by contrast, getting out from under the cloud of the mind-body problem demands that we come to recognize the body, even purely descriptively, as the place where consciousness and reality in fact come to occupy the very same conceptual space.

 

[Constance]

OK that's a good start. Now I think we can get somewhere and you will be able to help me in a meaningful way. To do that we need to be sure we're on the same page. So let's do that in steps: By "open-ended, lived, phenomenal interface", what exactly are you referring to there?

Randall, we're not 'on the same page' and can't be until you invest the time required to read and comprehend phenomenological philosophy.

I've mentioned to Soup before that Hoffman takes consciousness as extant to begin with, and therefore doesn't speak to it's genesis.

How and where does Hoffman describe the nature of consciousness -- what consciousness is -- as he understands it? Consciousness is the central problem to be investigated and understood in Conscious Studies, which in our time has become a complex interdisciplinary effort to understand the relationships of embodied consciousness, brain, mind, and what we can adequately define as the nature of 'reality'. All of those concepts remain sites of struggle for adequate interpretation. To simply say that 'consciousness exists, is extant' in the world, as you claim Hoffman does, is to say nothing of any substance about consciousness. Regarding the genesis of consciousness, however, Hoffman dives right in, claiming an ontological truth beyond demonstration that consciousness pre-exists the physical world itself and the evolution of beings capable of consciousness within it.

Are we referring to the same thing there, or are you talking about our inner perceptual world, which is yet one step away from the question of consciousness itself?

What are you talking about with regard to "our inner perceptual world"? And on what basis is all that we perceive and reflect on in the world "a step away from the question of consciousness itself"?

 

[Randall]

Randall, we're not 'on the same page' and can't be until you invest the time required to read and comprehend phenomenological philosophy.

Like I keep trying to get across, it's not that I don't comprehend, it's that, as should be obvious to you as well, there is no one correct way of looking at phenomenology, and that's because there are differing approaches by different philosophers who have their own spin or perspective on it. Add to that, there are multiple interpretations by individual students as to what each of those means. So the point in my asking, is to know exactly, without ambiguity, what you think you are saying, not what other people are saying. Once I know that, then we can build from there. So please, some specifics. Instead of focusing on what you think my intellectual capacity for comprehension is, or other issues that will get us sidetracked, can you please just answer the question I asked in your own words: By "open-ended, lived, phenomenal interface", what exactly are you referring to there?

How and where does Hoffman describe the nature of consciousness -- what consciousness is -- as he understands it? Consciousness is the central problem to be investigated and understood in Conscious Studies, which in our time has become a complex interdisciplinary effort to understand the relationships of embodied consciousness, brain, mind, and what we can adequately define as the nature of 'reality'. All of those concepts remain sites of struggle for adequate interpretation. To simply say that 'consciousness exists, is extant' in the world, as you claim Hoffman does, is to say nothing of any substance about consciousness.

Exactly. Or at least nothing substantial about how consciousness comes into being in the first place. His ideas about relationships between conscious agents may however prove to be very substantial.

Regarding the genesis of consciousness, however, Hoffman dives right in, claiming an ontological truth beyond demonstration that consciousness pre-exists the physical world itself and the evolution of beings capable of consciousness within it.

If that made any sense I might buy into it, but from my perspective, which is that existence itself is physical in nature, it doesn't.

What are you talking about with regard to "our inner perceptual world"? And on what basis is all that we perceive and reflect on in the world "a step away from the question of consciousness itself"?

I use the phrase "perceptual world" as a reference, literally, to things perceived ( the process of using the senses to acquire information about the surrounding environment or situation - Encarta ), not the thing that is experiencing the perceptions. Consciousness is from my perspective, the thing experiencing the perceptions, which makes the perceptual world one step away from consciousness itself. So for example, An AI might have a collection of electronic bits gathered from various sensory input devices that constitutes "information about the surrounding environment or situation", and that could even result in tasks being performed that are related to that information, but we don't have sufficient reason based on the task being performed, to assume that there is any consciousness behind it. I hope that helps clarify.

 

[Soupie]

I've mentioned to Soup before that Hoffman takes consciousness as extant to begin with, and therefore doesn't speak to it's genesis

This is correct. And as I've noted, I'm not here to defend Hoffman's entire theory.

The element of his theory that I do find value in is the insight that what we commonly consider to be physical reality is actually our phenomenal (mental) experience of reality.

We make the naive assumption that reality in-itself is as we phenomenally experience it to be.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-naïve-realism/answer/John-Ringland

As to the fact that Hoffman's theory doesn't explain the origin of consciousness but holds that it is primary.

We can accuse physicalists of doing the same, however. They hold that the "physical" (whatever fits under that umbrella these days) is primary. However, do they provide an explanation for its existence? Certainly not.

So what is the difference? A big one.

It's very hard to see how consciousness could emerge from the physical (the hard problem).

It's not so hard to see how phenomenal contents (what we typically call "the physical") could emerge from a fundamental consciousness. Virtual reality being a useful metaphor in this regard.

 

[smcder]

This is correct. And as I've noted, I'm not here to defend Hoffman's entire theory.

The element of his theory that I do find value in is the insight that what we commonly consider to be physical reality is actually our phenomenal (mental) experience of reality.

We make the naive assumption that reality in-itself is as we phenomenally experience it to be.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-naïve-realism/answer/John-Ringland

As to the fact that Hoffman's theory doesn't explain the origin of consciousness but holds that it is primary.

We can accuse physicalists of doing the same, however. They hold that the "physical" (whatever fits under that umbrella these days) is primary. However, do they provide an explanation for its existence? Certainly not.

So what is the difference? A big one.

It's very hard to see how consciousness could emerge from the physical (the hard problem).

It's not so hard to see how phenomenal contents (what we typically call "the physical") could emerge from a fundamental consciousness. Virtual reality being a useful metaphor in this regard.

It's not so hard to see how phenomenal contents (what we typically call "the physical") could emerge from a fundamental consciousness. Virtual reality being a useful metaphor in this regard.

How could phenomenal contents emerge from a fundamental consciuousness?

• how is virtual reality useful as a metaphor?
• if consciousness is primary and reality is the phenomenal content ... what restricts those contents? how is it that we (as independent conscious agents) agree that (many) things are the way they are?

 

[smcder]

@Constance

so the phenomenologists anticipated cognitive science:

The situatedness of our bodies in perception is not at bottom an object of judgment, inference, or even conscious awareness. It is instead the spontaneous, self-correcting, precognitive background of intentionality: “our body is not the object of an ‘I think’: it is an ensemble of lived meanings that finds its equilibrium” (PP, 153).

in a way that reminds me of how other thinkers anticipated later sciences ... was he as prescient as he seems to be? ... was his work informed by the science of his day? I know he discusses various cases of phantom limb, etc ... ? their close observations anticipated these findings and as several of our heroes continue to point out, can point the way for further investigations (a la neuro-phenomenology - or, as I prefer to think of it ... phenomenoneurology) ....

 

[Constance]

@Constance

so the phenomenologists anticipated cognitive science:

Merleau-Ponty followed and wrote about cognitive neuroscience as it was emerging in his time as well as developments in physics and biology. He understood both the contributions and limitations of neuroscience for an understanding of consciousness. Primarily he recognized that the neuroanatomy and functioning of the brain could not account for consciousness or resolve the mind-body problem given their reductiveness. He recognized that consciousness develops in the biological evolution of embodied species of life, beginning in prereflective experience -- preconscious bodily experience in organisms, animals, protohumans, and humans, which provides subconscious orientations of species to their environing worlds/niches -- yielding prereflective consciousness, subsequently in our species and some others passing into reflective consciousness in which we begin to make mental 'sense' of our lived experiences and become increasingly aware of our interractions with things and other consciousnesses in the world. Thus consciousness and mind develop out of the lived experience of living beings.

The situatedness of our bodies in perception is not at bottom an object of judgment, inference, or even conscious awareness. It is instead the spontaneous, self-correcting, precognitive background of intentionality: “our body is not the object of an ‘I think’: it is an ensemble of lived meanings that finds its equilibrium” (PP, 153).

Yes, it is this situated 'ensemble of lived meanings' absorbed/learned through prereflective experience in the world that generates the animal's and the human's foundational sense, not of an "I think," but of an "I can" that enables increasingly conscious, purposeful, and in some situations free action in the environing world, along with an increasing sense of our obligations to other beings.

 

[Constance]

It's not so hard to see how phenomenal contents (what we typically call "the physical") could emerge from a fundamental consciousness. Virtual reality being a useful metaphor in this regard.

How could phenomenal contents emerge from a fundamental consciuousness?

• how is virtual reality useful as a metaphor?
• if consciousness is primary and reality is the phenomenal content ... what restricts those contents? how is it that we (as independent conscious agents) agree that (many) things are the way they are?

Seconding those questions and hoping for a response.