Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Soupie]

@Jeff Davis

IMO consciousness is the envelope that gives us the ability to operate physically in a universe that is informational in composition.

I'm not sure I follow you completely, but this sentence reminded me of this quote that Langan features in the introduction to his CTMU:

@Langan

Berlinski observes that since the information embodied in a string of DNA or protein cannot affect the material dynamic of reality without being read by a material transducer, information is meaningless without matter.

Take for instance this very thread/discussion that all of us are having. Is it alive? Conscious?

These words that we write using symbols... they represent our consciousness, but without our physical bodies we wouldn't be able to share or receive them.

@Jeff Davis

The secret IMO is that there is no subconscious whatsoever, rather, we all have a universal informational collective available to us that we merely formulate to include a survival based relevance to ourselves. ... IMO, the subconscious is most likely universal consciousness, whose entrance is limited via the naturally displaced temporal adjustment of our physical existence. Possibly due to our physical existence's mortality based survival instincts, we find little critically mandated need or requirement for this non-temporal expanse of consciousness.

This is certainly an interesting idea.

If I'm not mistaken, I think it is based on phenomena such as OBEs and NDEs as well as episodic numinous experiences. Furthermore, I agree that the mind is distinct from the brain and that the mind extends from the body. I also think it's possible that minds exist/operate in a field. I think it's possible and likely that minds can interact.

However, my approach to these phenomena is much more natural as opposed to supernatural. (Thus my monism.)

I think our reflexive state of consciousness is inferior (for lack of a better term) to our non-reflexive states of consciousness. To me, this makes sense if what science tells us is true: that is, that non-reflexive states of consciousness have evolved and sustained terrestrial organisms for billions of years and - at least in human organisms - the reflexive state of consciousness is comparatively young.

This sense of something greater than our "selves" may not be a supernatural connection to the core of reality or a universal consciousness, but rather a sense of non-conscious states of experience.

 

[smcder]

I'm not sure I follow you completely, but this sentence reminded me of this quote that Langan features in the introduction to his CTMU:
Take for instance this very thread/discussion that all of us are having. Is it alive? Conscious?

These words that we write using symbols... they represent our consciousness, but without our physical bodies we wouldn't be able to share or receive them.

This is certainly an interesting idea.

If I'm not mistaken, I think it is based on phenomena such as OBEs and NDEs as well as episodic numinous experiences. Furthermore, I agree that the mind is distinct from the brain and that the mind extends from the body. I also think it's possible that minds exist/operate in a field. I think it's possible and likely that minds can interact.

However, my approach to these phenomena is much more natural as opposed to supernatural. (Thus my monism.)

I think our reflexive state of consciousness is inferior (for lack of a better term) to our non-reflexive states of consciousness. To me, this makes sense if what science tells us is true: that is, that non-reflexive states of consciousness have evolved and sustained terrestrial organisms for billions of years and - at least in human organisms - the reflexive state of consciousness is comparatively young.

This sense of something greater than our "selves" may not be a supernatural connection to the core of reality or a universal consciousness, but rather a sense of non-conscious states of experience.

where is the CTMU quote? the one of berlinski or is that Jeff's quote?



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[Soupie]

@smcder

where is the CTMU quote? the one of berlinski or is that Jeff's quote?

It is the Berlinski quote.

@Constance @smcder

I'm doing a little bit of reading about Phenemology. I find it quite puzzling. I'm not very far into it, and I'm having difficulty with the concept of pre-reflective self-consciousness:

One can get a bearing on the notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness by contrasting it with reflective self-consciousness. If you ask me to give you a description of the pain I feel in my right foot, or of what I was just thinking about, I would reflect on it and thereby take up a certain perspective that was one order removed from the pain or the thought. Thus, reflective self-consciousness is at least a higher-order cognition. It may be the basis for a report on one's experience, although not all reports involve a significant amount of reflection.

In contrast, pre-reflective self-consciousness is pre-reflective in the sense that (1) it is an awareness we have before we do any reflecting on our experience; (2) it is an implicit and first-order awareness rather than an explicit or higher-order form of self-consciousness. Indeed, an explicit reflective self-consciousness is possible only because there is a pre-reflective self-awareness that is an on-going and more primary self-consciousness. Although phenomenologists do not always agree on important questions about method, focus, or even whether there is an ego or self, they are in close to unanimous agreement about the idea that the experiential dimension always involves such an implicit pre-reflective self-awareness.[1] In line with Edmund Husserl (1959, 189, 412), who maintains that consciousness always involves a self-appearance (Für-sich-selbst-erscheinens), and in agreement with Michel Henry (1963, 1965), who notes that experience is always self-manifesting, and with Maurice Merleau-Ponty who states that consciousness is always given to itself and that the word ‘consciousness’ has no meaning independently of this self-givenness (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 488), Jean-Paul Sartre writes that pre-reflective self-consciousness is not simply a quality added to the experience, an accessory; rather, it constitutes the very mode of being of the experience:

This self-consciousness we ought to consider not as a new consciousness, but as the only mode of existence which is possible for a consciousness of something (Sartre 1943, 20 [1956, liv]).

I'm really struggling with this. An awareness we have... of what? An awareness of the environment, or an awareness of our awareness of the environment?

If I am understanding this correctly, it seems that phenomenologists believe self-consciousness is the foundational state of consciousness and all other states of consciousness rest on top of it? Do I have that terribly wrong?

 

[smcder]

yes ... you do

actually I have no idea - phenomenolgy is challenging ... I know constance has a good handle on it - I think of it as "what shows up for you" - a recent meditation directed: what is obvious for you? ... and now ... there must be a good literature on phenomenology and mindfulness

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[smcder]

natural / supernatural terminology can be confusing ... supernatural means something outside of nature can effect change - pantheistic Gods may be natural - deistic Gods created and left - and do not intervene ... a miracle implies the supernatural -


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[Constance]

Soupie, I see you quoted above from this SEP entry. Have you read it all? Perhaps if we all do we will have a common language to use at this point:

Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I have to leave in a few minutes but when I return tonight I'll quote some passages from MP and others to help further clarify the significance of prereflective consciousness for our understanding of our 'consciousness complex' as a whole and its relationship with nature.

ps: it would help if we all post the url sources from which we are quoting.

 

[smcder]

Soupie, I see you quoted above from this SEP entry. Have you read it all? Perhaps if we all do we will have a common language to use at this point:

Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I have to leave in a few minutes but when I return tonight I'll quote some passages from MP and others to help further clarify the significance of prereflective consciousness for our understanding of our 'consciousness complex' as a whole and its relationship with nature.

ps: it would help if we all post the url sources from which we are quoting.

I've gotten slack on sourcing - esp when using phone



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[Soupie]

Soupie, I see you quoted above from this SEP entry. Have you read it all? Perhaps if we all do we will have a common language to use at this point:

Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I have to leave in a few minutes but when I return tonight I'll quote some passages from MP and others to help further clarify the significance of prereflective consciousness for our understanding of our 'consciousness complex' as a whole and its relationship with nature.

ps: it would help if we all post the url sources from which we are quoting.

Actually, I did link to the SEP entry. In my browser (Chrome), the hyper-linked text shows up as blue as opposed to the normal black. Might be hard to see on some monitors or render differently in certain browsers.

I haven't read the entire entry, no. I got stuck on that first concept! I've actually been working my way through the entry on consciousness.

I was actually going to recommend having those of us interested read through that entry together and having regular questions/discussions after each section. We could do the same for the entry devoted to phenomenology as well.

 

[smcder]

Actually, I did link to the SEP entry. In my browser (Chrome), the hyper-linked text shows up as blue as opposed to the normal black. Might be hard to see on some monitors or render differently in certain browsers.

I haven't read the entire entry, no. I got stuck on that first concept! I've actually been working my way through the entry on consciousness.

I was actually going to recommend having those of us interested read through that entry together and having regular questions/discussions after each section. We could do the same for the entry devoted to phenomenology as well.

which two?

consciousness
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

phenomenology
Search (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

correct? I'm game -




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[Constance]

Actually, I did link to the SEP entry. In my browser (Chrome), the hyper-linked text shows up as blue as opposed to the normal black. Might be hard to see on some monitors or render differently in certain browsers.

I haven't read the entire entry, no. I got stuck on that first concept! I've actually been working my way through the entry on consciousness.

I was actually going to recommend having those of us interested read through that entry together and having regular questions/discussions after each section. We could do the same for the entry devoted to phenomenology as well.

That's a good idea. It will help us get to some grounding in basic issues and keep us from wandering off into too many subjects at once.

 

[Constance]

which two?

consciousness
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

phenomenology
Search (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

correct? I'm game -

I think it would be helpful if we preceded those two with the article Soupie linked most recently. It's relatively short and clarifies an issue we've been talking about and around in the last few weeks This one:

Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Constance]

In the article at that link ^ the following extract is especially clear and helpful in drawing attention to the mutual (and interdependent) presence -- compresence, being together --that is already given in and by prereflective consciousness and the world in which it exists.

. . . To put it differently, unless a mental process is pre-reflectively self-conscious there will be nothing it is like to undergo the process, and it therefore cannot be a phenomenally conscious process.

The mineness in question is not a quality like being scarlet, sour or soft. It doesn't refer to a specific experiential content, to a specific what; nor does it refer to the diachronic or synchronic sum of such content, or to some other relation that might obtain between the contents in question. Rather, it refers to the distinct givenness or the how it feels of experience. It refers to the first-personal presence or character of experience. It refers to the fact that the experiences I am living through are given differently (but not necessarily better) to me than to anybody else. It could consequently be claimed that anybody who denies the for-me-ness of experience simply fails to recognize an essential constitutive aspect of experience. Such a denial would be tantamount to a denial of the first-person perspective. It would entail the view that my own mind is either not given to me at all — I would be mind- or self-blind — or is presented to me in exactly the same way as the minds of others.

 

[smcder]

master and his emissary and mind and cosmos came in thru interlibrary loan today!


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[Soupie]

@Constance

Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Sure. Let's start with this one. Lets talk about the format/pace we want to use. Should we keep it here in this thread, or start a new thread?

 

[Soupie]

Here's a long read about the current state of the neuroscience of consciousness through the lense of those working with individuals in vegetative and locked-in states. Not much by way of the paranormal, but definitely an important perspective if one seriously wants to understand the connection between the brain and the mind.

The mind readers | Mosaic

At scientific meetings, Schiff has outlined a more detailed version of this neural structure, called the ‘mesocircuit’, which actually consists of two circuits linking the thalamus to the cortex. Some of the connections involved in the mesocircuit stimulate nerve activity, others reduce or prevent it. Overall, higher-level consciousness emerges as a dynamic coalition of these two parallel interactive brain networks. This theory, which he and Laureys are putting to the test, also reveals a way in which one might jump-start a stalled brain. Over the years, a remarkable series of experiments have shown how a mind might be coaxed back into awareness. ...

In 1995, Schiff studied an 81-year-old woman with a disordered consciousness. As a result of an acute stroke, she had suffered hemispatial neglect. She was unable to identify her right hand as her own. Ice-cold water was squirted into her ear, as a standard test to see the extent to which her responses were lopsided. To Schiff’s amazement, the water reversed almost all her symptoms: “That’s my hand!” she cried out. Schiff believed that the chill had stimulated her inner ear, which controls the sense of balance through the vestibular system, and, in turn, her thalamus, knitting together the networks that had been disrupted by the stroke. Four minutes later, when the water had warmed, she lost her hand once again.

Armed with this understanding, Schiff has provided insight into the paradoxical discovery that some patients in vegetative states can be awoken with a sedative, zolpidem. One of the best-known cases is the South African Louis Viljoen, who had been left vegetative by a road accident. One day in 1999, Wally Nel, a GP working near Johannesburg, gave Louis the drug to ease the way that he clawed at his mattress. Instead of being relaxed, Viljoen sat bolt upright, smiled, and said: “Hello Mum. Am I in hospital?”

The bolded line reminds me of my earlier musings about self-awareness arising from two streams of consciousness "looking at" each other.

And while these brain regions correlate with mind, I don't believe they are mind.

 

[Constance]

Sure. Let's start with this one. Lets talk about the format/pace we want to use. Should we keep it here in this thread, or start a new thread?

This is beginning to sound like a project. Soon we'll have an oversight committee. Let's just let whatever comes up re phenomenology and consciousness do so organically in this thread, if it does. For example, after you've read the whole of the SEP article you linked on Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness, you might want to comment on what you find questionable or persuasive in it, and a discussion might take off related to other thinkers we've each been reading and linking to. We might even get back to the other half of the thread title and discuss what paranormal studies and psychical research suggest about consciousness.

 

[smcder]

I am in training until Friday, so not sure how much reading I'll get done - but will catch up this weekend . . . in the meantime I read a few pages in the intro to Nagel's Mind and Cosmos before going to bed. Thought this was worth sharing, to give a flavor:

I would like to defend the untutored reaction of incredulity to the reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin of and evolution of life. It is prima facie highly improbable that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are expected to abandon this naive response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.

....

My skepticism is not based on religious belief, or on a belief in any definite alternative. It is just a belief that the available scientific evidence, in spite of the consensus of scientific opinion, does not in this matter rationally require us to subordinate the incredulity of common sense. This is especially true with regard to the origin of life.

...

I realize that such doubts will strike many people as outrageous, but that is because almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct , on the ground that anything else would not be science.

 

[Soupie]

This is beginning to sound like a project. Soon we'll have an oversight committee. Let's just let whatever comes up re phenomenology and consciousness do so organically in this thread, if it does. For example, after you've read the whole of the SEP article you linked on Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness, you might want to comment on what you find questionable or persuasive in it, and a discussion might take off related to other thinkers we've each been reading and linking to. We might even get back to the other half of the thread title and discuss what paranormal studies and psychical research suggest about consciousness.

Haha, okay, so not reading through it together then... Alright. When I have questions/comments, I'll continue to post them here.

 

[Soupie]

master and his emissary and mind and cosmos came in thru interlibrary loan today!

The Big Ideas series by TVO has a podcast featuring audio versions of many (all?) of their lectures. I dnloaded several from Peterson (just listened to the one about dealing with dragons. Incredible!) and there are a few from McGilchrist as well.

iTunes - Podcasts - Big Ideas (Audio) by TVO

 

[Soupie]

Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: It is prima facie highly improbable that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection.

Ah, I'm so torn here.

How do we know it's highly improbable? Isn't it "improbable" that planets should fall into beautiful, rhythmic orbits around stars? And yet that's just what they do all across the universe. Maybe the emergence of life is just as inevitable as planets being pulled into orbits around stars. Order out of chaos.

Maybe our universe is just one of... trillions. From the perspective, maybe the emergence of life is less improbable.

On the other hand, the machine-like precision of life (that metaphor of which ironically people like Nagel and McGilchrist reject) leads people to feel that there has to be a creator/designer or at least a guiding hand. And there may be! The evidence that life has evolved/adapted is in the fossil and genetic record. How this evolution/adaption occurred/occurs is another question perhaps.

Asked about creationism, Langan has said:

I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible.[18]

Langan also seems to believe something very much like @Jeff Davis described above about there being a "universal" consciousness to which all minds belong.

In explaining this relationship, the CTMU shows that reality possesses a complex property akin to self-awareness. That is, just as the mind is real, reality is in some respects like a mind. ... This implies that we all exist in what can be called "the Mind of God", and that our individual minds are parts of God's Mind. They are not as powerful as God's Mind, for they are only parts thereof; yet, they are directly connected to the greatest source of knowledge and power that exists. This connection of our minds to the Mind of God, which is like the connection of parts to a whole, is what we sometimes call the soul or spirit, and it is the most crucial and essential part of being human.[28]

This is not unlike the thought experiment I mentioned earlier about how two minds might experience the same "what-it's-like-ness."

If our minds are a subset of God's (the Universe) mind, then God does indeed know-what-it's-like to be us. And of course, the Bible - at least - says this is the case.

Langan is considered a crank by secularists and skeptics - and his ideas/concepts may not be completely accurate - but I wonder if some day people will view them in a different light.