Reality

Twyvel, interesting article. Wish I could attend the conference. Of course it is "possible" that consciousness is the fundamental basis of reality, but neurology suggests otherwise. Consciousness seems to require a functioning brain to exist and is impaired by brain damage. Brains build consciousness out of bioelectrical processes. Consciousness does not create brains although conscious entities can perhaps affect some quantum processes, and we can certainly try to fix malfunctioning brains through drugs, surgery or psychotherapy.

What does Chalmers propose as the source or origin of his postulated conscious building blocks?

twyvel wrote:

Behavior is certainly an indicator of awareness, although not a "direct" observation. Your refusal to accept that consciousness can have qualities depends on using the word "have" in two different ways. Yes, English is an ambigous language, but changing meaning in mid-sentence is not kosher.

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Once again, you seem to think that you can make a statement true simply by definition. Awareness can indeed be both a subject and an object at the same time. It might help if you studied QM in which a photon is both a wave and a particle. Smile

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I think the autobiographical self is an observed object.

I agree. But the proto-self is unobserved and the core self is felt rather than observed. (See above response to JLN.)

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I think the main difference between the twyvel/Chalmers approach and the Terry/Damasio approach is that the latter assumes some sort of "objective reality" in which "conciousness exists, but the former holds that reality is a function of consciousness (consciousness is a priori). I agree with the twyvel position because it seems to me that concepts of "self" are essentially aspects of language/socialization unique to humans who are subject to structural patterns which transcend the level of "individuals". It is but a short step from there to "group consciousnes", and "holistic consciousness". In current parlance we need to look at reality "from the top down" not "the bottom up" and such an endeavour cannot assume that reductionist concepts of "truth" "evidence" which rely on objective set membership will be applcable.
The nuances of "top down reality" can thus only be hinted at not "proved" by the inadequacies of a "bottom up" approach.

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fresco, the reason that we assume that there is an objective reality is that all of the evidence to date indicates that there is.

You are quite right, your "top down" approach cannot rely on truth and evidence and must look to using esoteric language and man-made concepts in order to achieve any credence. :wink:

This approach fails utterly in explaining the origin of consciousness, who or what invented the apparent reality that is the basis for the perceptions and behavior of 6 billion human beings and countless animals, where the consciousnesses came from who got together and invented the group/holistic consciousness, and why any being in its right mind would create a world in which there is so much suffering. In fact, it doesn't explain anything at all.

One might suspect that non-dualistic philosophy is just another way to abdicate responsibility for the suffering in the world. If it doesn't really exist, we don't have any obligation to alleviate it. It's just a game. Many theists claim that pain is just punishment from God, part of his inscrutable plan, or will be rewarded many times over in heaven. In any case, it is not their problem, either.

You did not answer my questions regarding dark matter, string theory, etc. One might suspect that anyone whose arguments consist of tossing out random scientific terms and references to well-known authorities and fails to explain any of his/her comments, has no basic understanding of the subject and is just trying to appear to be knowledgeable. Oh, right, in your universe appearance is everything, since there is no objective reality and all you have to do is get together, invent some concepts, and agree that "it is so" in order to make them "real." Rolling Eyes

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Terry: I think I can give no higher compliment than to say I wish I had written your latest post.

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Joe, thank you. I have enjoyed reading your posts but do not usually reply to anyone with whom I can find nothing to argue about. Very Happy

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Are 'insane' people really insane? Isn't "insane" just another objective/subjective tag?

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O.K. Terry here's the deal.

If you first define "explain" and "origin" without recourse to the psychological constructs of "time" and "causality", I will comment on the "suffering in the world", which is admirably dealt with by holistic commentators such as Krishnamurti. (I won't need to deal with physical models such as "string theory" because if you understand my challenge you will have dealt with them yourself en passant)

I await your response !

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fresco: Isn't it question-begging to say that "time" and "causality" are psychological constructs? How do you know that, if not inductively? And if that's the case, how can you attempt a "top-down" approach to reality when you rely on a "bottom-up" approach to "time" and "causality"?

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From Devin Harris on "Timelessness"

<<(Einsteins) most descriptive testimony to his faith in timelessness came when his lifelong friend Besso died, shortly before his own death, Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had proceeded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

If the past and future both exist together forever, how then do we resolve the uncertainty of quantum mechanics into that world view? In quantum theory, what is physically real is said to be undefined until it is observed, or as I prefer to say, before it is interacted with. This ability for reality to be undefined is not only true of what is real in regards to the future, but is true of the past events as well. According to quantum theory, the observer literally determines the course time has chosen by observing an event.>>

....and since "causality" is essentially about an ordered sequence of events in "time" where's the "induction" and question begging ?

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fresco wrote:

From Devin Harris on "Timelessness"

<<(Einsteins) most descriptive testimony to his faith in timelessness came when his lifelong friend Besso died, shortly before his own death, Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had proceeded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

If the past and future both exist together forever....

Quite a leap, wouldn't you say, Fresco.

Einstein said he "believes" something -- and the next thing, you are positing it as fact.

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fresco wrote:

....and since "causality" is essentially about an ordered sequence of events in "time" where's the "induction" and question begging ?

You cite quantum theory and ask "where's the induction"? Surely, fresco, you must be jesting.

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truth
There you go again, Joe. Tell Fresco what is wrong with his argument, not just "surely...you must be jesting." As far as I'm concerned, that's a pseudo response.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

There you go again, Joe. Tell Fresco what is wrong with his argument, not just "surely...you must be jesting." As far as I'm concerned, that's a pseudo response.

Sorry, JLN, I thought it would have been evident from the context.

To expand upon my pseudo-response:

One cannot claim to abjure inductive reasoning by relying, in part, upon a theory that is based upon inductive reasoning. If fresco claims that he is not relying upon induction, yet uses quantum theory to support his position that time is somehow a "psychological construct" (or whatever . . . I can't quite tell what fresco is arguing, but that's pretty familiar territory for me), then he is either engaged in a rather sly jest or he is blind to the irony of it all.

And that is what I meant, JLN. Hope that clears things up.

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Frank,

1. Einstein says "we physicists". (1950-ish)

2. There are NO FACTS, only degrees of confidence in predictions.

Unless we are active working scientists none of us can claim to be experts - but look at what they are saying. This "naive realism stance" is yesterday's news!

For example, here's Capra (ex high energy physics researcher) ..."Physics has now lost its role as the science providing the most fundamental description of reality....today the paradigm shift in science at its deepest level implies a shift from physics to the life sciences" (1996)

Since writing this I see Joe has chimed in with his "induction theme" with respect to QM to which I put the following points.

3. Einstein rejected QM but still argued time was an illusion. My citation of QM was in part a rejoinder to Terry's apparent lack of familiarity with the observer-observed problem. (I don't need to "rely" on it)

4. My rejection of "facts" either classifies all thinking as "inductive" or devalues the concept of "induction" per se.

5. Even a rejection of my view of "facts" seems to put Joe in a position of saying "All theories are inductive".

....and I'm still waiting for Terry's response.

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truth
Joe, surely you must be jesting.
Laughing

No seriously, I thank you for that comment. At least Fresco now has something to respond to.

I'm trying to catch up with this dialog. I'm confused so far, to tell you the truth. I assume that "from top down" refers to deductive reasoning and "from bottom up" to inductive reasoning.

To jump the gun--before really considering what's been going on--I do feel that one cannot "prove" the existence of (the theoretical constructs) time, causality, and especially "objective reality" inductively. Objective reality is, to my mind, a metaphysical concept, a necessary concept for most intellectual purposes. But ultimately (philosophically/metaphysically) it is problematical. Time and causality are "psychological" in so far as the EXPERIENCE of time varies with circumstance and mood. We all know that, but if one assumes it is objectively real in the way theorists like Einstein use it, I wonder if they would agree that it is more then a theoretical construct, useful for some purposes but having little reality, at least in the mundane sense that we use the term. Causality is clearly a construction. Was it Hume who said that it is not an empirical fact that we observe, but rather than explanatory tool of our consciousness? He said, if I recall correctly, that when we see a cue ball move toward an object ball and push it forward upon collision, we have merely seen the cue stop at the point that it touches the object ball, and THEN we see the object ball move. We do not see some causal FORCE transferred from one ball to the other. Instead we THINK causal force in order to construct an explanation for the observation. In that sense, causality is a psychological phenomenon rather than an objective empirical one.
I hope I'm not too far off the topic of debate.

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JLN

You are correct in stressing the pragmatic value of concepts such as "time" and "causality" and this pragmatism is based on a "reality paradigm" of "prediction and control". The essence of a discussion on "reality" should be begin with an acknowlegement of that status which therefore may preclude the explanatory value of such concepts with respect to alternative paradigms such as "sustainability". The choice of paradigms is "the top" and its consequences define the parameters of coherence of the subconcepts.

Consider as an analogy "the body" as the universe of discourse. Here "sustainability" is the primary reality and hence "teleological" as opposed to "causal" explanation is the norm.

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Terry

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Awareness CAN be observed, both by the person who is aware, and by anyone else who interacts with them. Try talking to someone in a coma.

That it has to be pointed out to you the difference between awareness; that which is 'observing', and behavior; that which is observed, between observer and observed, between seeing as verb, and seen

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Consciousness seems to require a functioning brain to exist and is impaired by brain damage.

"Consciousness seems to require a functioning brain to exist"

Yes, it seems to.

"and is impaired by brain damage."

1. You cannot say consciousness is impaired by brain damage if it only seemsnot the brain.

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Brains build consciousness out of bioelectrical processes.

Unfounded.

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What does Chalmers propose as the source or origin of his postulated conscious building blocks?

I'm not sure. I didn't provide the link to support nondualism, as I think Chalmers is more of a nondual leaning positivist; one who believes in the existence of a material world but cannot justify or find support for his beliefs, though that is speculation on my part.

It was more to demonstrate the wide ranging nature of the issue of consciousness, and the mystery that it is from a perspective that would hopefully be conducive to your (science) inclinations, whatever that may mean.

Here is some of what Chalmers says about what he refers to as the hard problem and easy problem of consciousness.

[snip]
" The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:

# the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
# the integration of information by a cognitive system;
# the reportability of mental states;
# the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
# the focus of attention;
# the deliberate control of behavior;
# the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. For example, one sometimes says that a mental state is conscious when it is verbally reportable, or when it is internally accessible. Sometimes a system is said to be conscious of some information when it has the ability to react on the basis of that information, or, more strongly, when it attends to that information, or when it can integrate that information and exploit it in the sophisticated control of behavior. We sometimes say that an action is conscious precisely when it is deliberate. Often, we say that an organism is conscious as another way of saying that it is awake.
[/snip]

Hard problem:
[snip]
"The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."
[/snip]

[snip]
" When it comes to conscious experience, this sort of explanation fails. What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience - perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report - there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? A simple explanation of the functions leaves this question open.

There is no analogous further question in the explanation of genes, or of life, or of learning. If someone says "I can see that you have explained how DNA stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next, but you have not explained how it is a gene", then they are making a conceptual mistake. All it means to be a gene is to be an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function. But if someone says "I can see that you have explained how information is discriminated, integrated, and reported, but you have not explained how it is experienced", they are not making a conceptual mistake. This is a nontrivial further question.
[/snip]

He is pointing out that there appears to be something apart from experiences that has This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere."
[snip]

Do you see the beauty in this,

" This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role. But for any role it might play, there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function. Perhaps it will even turn out that in the course of explaining a function, we will be led to the key insight that allows an explanation of experience. If this happens, though, the discovery will be an extra explanatory reward. There is no cognitive function such that we can say in advance that explanation of that function will automatically explain experience." To explain experience, we need a new approach. The usual explanatory methods of cognitive science and neuroscience do not suffice. These methods have been developed precisely to explain the performance of cognitive functions, and they do a good job of it. But as these methods stand, they are only equipped to explain the performance of functions. When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say." To explain experience, we need a new approach. The usual explanatory methods of cognitive science and neuroscience do not suffice. These methods have been developed precisely to explain the performance of cognitive functions, and they do a good job of it. But as these methods stand, they are only equipped to explain the performance of functions. When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say."fresco, JLNobody

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fresco wrote:

Frank,

1. Einstein says "we physicists". (1950-ish)

2. There are NO FACTS, only degrees of confidence in predictions.

I understand that, Fresco, and I certainly indulge myself on that account at times.

But whether Einstein is quoted as saying he "believes" or "us (not we) physicists believe" -- the fact is that he is stating a belief -- nothing more. And quite honestly, it sounded more like the kind of thing one would say to another person in the context of the circumstances in which he said it - as opposed to a scientific observation or approximation.

But in very next sentence -- you use this comment as the basis for: "If the past and future both exist together forever, how then do we..."

Not making a big deal of this, Fresco, just pointing out that a leap of that magnitude is not, in my humble opinion, appropriate.

I'm out of my element here right now. This discussion has taken a turn that I recognize as being beyond my abilities. I don't try to fake these kinds of things -- but I do follow them as best I can. And when I noticed this...what I consider an inappropriate leap...I decided to mention it.

Don't let me interfere with this very interesting discussion.

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fresco wrote:

2. There are NO FACTS, only degrees of confidence in predictions.

I tend to agree with that assertion, fresco, but your distinction between "facts" and "degrees of confidence" is largely a semantic quibble. After all, we can call something in which we have a near-total degree of confidence a "fact" even if we reject the notion of objective "truth."

fresco wrote:

Since writing this I see Joe has chimed in with his "induction theme". . .

Hey, I have a theme! Cool.

fresco wrote:

3. Einstein rejected QM but still argued time was an illusion. My citation of QM was in part a rejoinder to Terry's apparent lack of familiarity with the observer-observed problem. (I don't need to "rely" on it)

Honestly, fresco, I have no clue why either you or Terry brought up quantum theory. Indeed, I've seen it mentioned here and in other threads, and I have no clue why anyone would bring it up in connection with ontological or epistemological discussions.

fresco wrote:

4. My rejection of "facts" either classifies all thinking as "inductive" or devalues the concept of "induction" per se.

Well, which is it?

fresco wrote:

5. Even a rejection of my view of "facts" seems to put Joe in a position of saying "All theories are inductive".

I would never say that. All scientific theories -- or at least all robust scientific theories -- are combinations of inductive and deductive reasoning. Theories that are wholly inductive are sterile, theories that are wholly deductive are mere conjectures.

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ChitownJoe wrote:

Theories that are wholly inductive are sterile, theories that are wholly deductive are mere conjectures.

Very well expressed, i find that to be an excellent piece of writing.

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