P.S. to the webmaster: I notice that Recent Comments till do not update all the time. Is that a fixable problem?
And I see that the font size in comments is smaller, but maybe a bit too small. Might we try slightly bigger?hazel
January 2, 2019
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Last for now, Jung believed in the Collective Unconscious, a set of archtypes–ideas and representative icons–that reside somehow in the unconscious of all people (even "below" the subsconscious, perhaps), and which provide a common framework for our understanding, both cultural and personal, of the world and especially of human beings. From a dualistic viewpoint, these would exist "Platonically" somehow, although I don't know if Jung thought of them that way.
FWIW, I have a friend who has specialized in, and written a book on, Jungian psychology, psychedelic experience, and the use of psychedelic experience in psychiatric therapy.hazel
January 2, 2019
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to ba77. There are many different forms of Eastern mysticism, and ideas that spring from it. Eastern mysticism is not synonymous with panpsychism. Actually Eastern mysticism is quite compatible with quantum physics, and various quantum physicists have liked some of the ideas from Eastern mysticism.hazel
January 2, 2019
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to Gpuccio et al. FYI: I'm working on a well-organized (I hope) reply to the various posts of the last day, but real like has intervened and time is sort. Hopefully I will not be forgotten. :-)hazel
January 2, 2019
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Eastern mysticism, i.e. panpsychism, has a insurmountable difficulty with quantum mechanics in that, number one, there is no evidence whatsoever that the basic constituents of this universe are conscious.
Secondly, quantum physicist and panpsychist's David Bohm's hidden variable theory is, for all practical purposes, empirically falsified.
“When Bohm expressed “hope” that violations of QM (Quantum Mechanics) would be found later and hidden variables supported, Bohr responded that the strange sentence is almost isomorphic to “I hope that 2×2=5 will be proven at some point which will have a good effect on our finances.”
https://motls.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-term-copenhagen-interpretation-got.html
A Critique of Bohmian Mechanics (Pilot Wave theory) - (2018) video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2hoU4jaQQ
The One Theory of Quantum Mechanics That Actually Kind of Makes Sense – But most physicists don’t buy it. – Dec 1, 2016
Excerpt: pilot-wave theory requires that “hidden variables” exist,,,
But despite Einstein’s reservations, multiple mathematical theorems have all but proven that hidden variables cannot explain away all of the bizarre behaviors seen in quantum mechanics. The most recent and famous being John Stewart Bell’s theorem, which concludes that, “No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a24114/pilot-wave-quantum-mechanics-theory/
Bohmian mechanics, a ludicrous caricature of Nature - Lubos Motl - July 15, 2013
Excerpt: There's no way out here. If you attempt to emulate a quantum field theory (QED) in this Bohmian way, you introduce lots of ludicrous gears and wheels – much like in the case of the luminiferous aether, they are gears and wheels that don't exist according to pretty much direct observations – and they must be finely adjusted to reproduce what quantum mechanics predicts (sometimes) without any adjustments whatsoever. Every new Bohmian gear or wheel you encounter generally breaks the Lorentz symmetry and makes the (wrong) prediction of a Lorentz violation and you will need to fine-tune infinitely many properties of these gears and wheels to restore the Lorentz invariance and other desirable properties of a physical theory (even a simple and fundamental thing such as the linearity of Schrödinger's equation is really totally unexplained in Bohmian mechanics and requires infinitely many adjustments to hold – while it may be derived from logical consistency in quantum mechanics). It's infinitely unlikely that they take the right values "naturally" so the theory is at least infinitely contrived. More likely, there's no way to adjust the gears and wheels to obtain relativistically invariant predictions at all.
I would say that we pretty much directly experimentally observe the fact that the observations obey the Lorentz symmetry; the wave function isn't an observable wave; and lots of other, totally universal and fundamental facts about the symmetries and the interpretation of the basic objects we use in physics. Bohmian mechanics is really trying to deny all these basic principles – it is trying to deny facts that may be pretty much directly extracted from experiments. It is in conflict with the most universal empirical data about the reality collected in the 20th and 21st century. It wants to rape Nature.
A pilot-wave-like theory has to be extracted from a very large class of similar classical theories but infinitely many adjustments have to be made – a very special subclass has to be chosen – for the Bohmian theory to reproduce at least some predictions of quantum mechanics (to produce predictions that are at least approximately local, relativistic, rotationally invariant, unitary, linear etc.). But even if one succeeds and the Bohmian theory does reproduce the quantum predictions, we can't really say that it has made the correct predictions because it was sometimes infinitely fudged or adjusted to produce the predetermined goal. On the other hand, quantum mechanics in general and specific quantum mechanical theories in particular genuinely do predict certain facts, including some very general facts about Nature. If you search for theories within the rigid quantum mechanical framework, while obeying the general postulates, you may make many correct predictions or conclusions pretty much without any additional assumptions.
https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/07/bohmian-mechanics-ludicrous-caricature.html
Quantum correlations do not imply instant causation – August 12, 2016
Excerpt: A research team led by a Heriot-Watt scientist has shown that the universe is even weirder than had previously been thought.
In 2015 the universe was officially proven to be weird. After many decades of research, a series of experiments showed that distant, entangled objects can seemingly interact with each other through what Albert Einstein famously dismissed as “Spooky action at a distance”.
A new experiment by an international team led by Heriot-Watt’s Dr Alessandro Fedrizzi has now found that the universe is even weirder than that: entangled objects do not cause each other to behave the way they do.
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-quantum-imply-instant-causation.html
"hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize.
John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it.
How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?"
per Jimfit
That is to say, despite the claim from panpsychists such as Hameroff, Chalmers and others that Quantum Mechanics is somehow compatible with panpsychism, the evidence we now have from quantum mechanics, which falsified all hidden variable theories, strongly argues for Mind/Consciousness preceding physical reality, (i.e. Theism), and not for consciousness being co-terminus with the basic constituents of physical reality as is presupposed within panpsychism:
i.e. Due to advances in quantum mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
1. Consciousness either precedes all of material reality or is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality.
2. If consciousness is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality.
3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality.
4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality.
Five intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Double Slit, Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect):
Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness: 5 Experiments – video
https://youtu.be/t5qphmi8gYE
bornagain77
January 2, 2019
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Ed, according to Wikipedia, Sting's "album's title was inspired by Arthur Koestler's "The Roots of Coincidence", which was influenced by Jung. Sting has a long history of being interested in Eastern ideas, and he has practiced serious yoga for years.hazel
January 2, 2019
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Hazel
Synchronicity: nice word. I first encountered it in Carl Jung’s introduction to the I Ching, many years ago.
Silly me. I thought that it was just an album by the Police. :)Ed George
January 2, 2019
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GP and WJM as to
the earth and moon and galaxies, and even my physical body, may not be what we think they are as material objects,
For some reason that reminds me of this tidbit:
Professor Crull states in the following article “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time - Feb. 2018
Excerpt: Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,,
The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted.
What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.
https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time
Here are a few more notes that back up the preceding startling claim:
Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time – 2016
Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe.
Excerpt: Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,,
“If you have space-time, you have a well-defined causal order,” said Caslav Brukner, a physicist at the University of Vienna who studies quantum information. But “if you don’t have a well-defined causal order,” he said — as is the case in experiments he has proposed — then “you don’t have space-time.”,,,
Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Bruner said he is still unsure.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
Qubits that never interact could exhibit past-future entanglement – July 30, 2012
Excerpt: Typically, for two particles to become entangled, they must first physically interact. Then when the particles are physically separated and still share the same quantum state, they are considered to be entangled. But in a new study, physicists have investigated a new twist on entanglement in which two qubits become entangled with each other even though they never physically interact.,,
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-qubits-interact-past-future-entanglement.html
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012
Excerpt: According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger.
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html
It is also interesting to point out that this experiment for 'quantum entanglement in time' is very friendly to Dr. Michael Egnor’s (Theistic) contention (via ancient philosophy) that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance.”
Perception and the Cartesian Theater – Michael Egnor – December 8, 2015
Excerpt: Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance. The notion that a perception of the moon occurs at the moon is “bizarre” (Torley’s word) only if one presumes that perception is constrained by distance and local conditions — perhaps perception would get tired if it had to go to the moon or it wouldn’t be able to go because it’s too cold there. Yet surely the view that the perception of a rose held up to my eye was located at the rose wouldn’t be deemed nearly as bizarre. At what distance does perception of an object at the object become inconceivable?
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/perception_and101471.html
Often, when presented with such evidence, atheists will often claim that no one understands quantum mechanics. Yet it is funny how often Quantum mechanics consistently meshes so nicely with what we would priorily expect from a Theistic, i.e. Mind first, perspective (Egnor has noted this correspondence elsewhere).,,,
"To an Aristotelian (like Heisenberg), quantum mechanics isn’t strange at all."
- Michael Egnor
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/07/what-is-matter-the-aristotelian-perspective/
From that "Theistic" vantage point it is easy to see why Atheistic materialists are so often befuddled by Quantum mechanics and indeed why they will never understand it.
Of related note
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4
bornagain77
January 2, 2019
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William J Murray at #91:
First of all, thank you for the very interesting discussion.
I hate to repeat myself, but I really think that we don't disagree so much as it could seem.
My point is that we should always, at a scientific level of discussion, rely on facts. Facts are observables, all observables, including of course consciousness events.
Now, good science is usually independent enough from specific worldviews and cognitive biases. Because it is good science. I am the first to admint that cognitive bias can never be completely canceled, but in good science it is well controlled.
So, good science is the science that lead physicists to develop quantum mechanics, against all previous worldviews and against any simple intuitions of their minds. Why? Because they relied on facts, observables, and they developed good inferences from those facts. That is a very good example of how science should work.
IOWs, they did not starts from any philosophical ideas of how reality should be. They started from observables, and made good inferences on how realy probably is.
That's what I mean when I say that it is not so important, at the present state of knowledge, if we are dualists or idealist monists. Of course it would be an error to start from physicalist monism, because all that we know form science is already against that position.
So, we can be dualists or idealist monists, but it will not affect our scientific inquiry, provided that we are really looking at facts, and deriving good inferences from them.
My point is that at present our observables are of two different kinds: objects and subjective experiences. That's why I proposed a "methodological sualism", at least as long as it works well with facts. Because it is a fact that objects perceived and our subjective representations of them behave differently, as far as we can understand from what we know of reality. I am not relying on any final idea about what they are, about sunstances and so on. I am remaining completely empirical, and I have no prejudices or expections. I want only one thing: truth, or as much of it as it is possible.
Maybe I am wrong, but could you please make some realistic example of how that attitude could be a problem in scientific inquiry?
Of course the interactions between the subjective world and the objective world (both of them considered as categories of what we perceive) are important. They are important because they are facts, they are observables, and therefore they must be part of out inquiry about reality.
When I speak against subjectivism, I am not in any way speaking against the importance of subjective experiences. Unfortunately, those terms have two different meanings:
1) Objective = perceived as something existing in the general framework of the "outer world" (whatever it is)
Subjective = percieved as an inner representation, that can or cannot correspond to some object in the outer world
2) Objective = corresponding to something real
Subjective = a personal representation about reality that can, very simply, be wrong
So, subjective experiences, in the first sense, are certainly objective in the second sense. They are "objects" in our consciousness. They exist. They are real.
But ideas about reality can be right or wrong, and so they are subjective in the second sense. Subjectivism is, for me, the wrong idea that correspondence with the objective reality is not important in cognition.
Everything goes back to the basic epistemologic distinction bewteen facts (observables) and theories (inferences).
I have nothing against inferences, indeed they are our greatest tool in understanding reality. But only if they are good inferences about well observed facts, either in the inner world or in the exterior world.
I have to stop for the moment, but I will be very happy of any feedback from you abiut these points.gpuccio
January 2, 2019
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Synchronicity: nice word. I first encountered it in Carl Jung's introduction to the I Ching, many years ago.
Jung on Synchronicity, https://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm
This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity,[2] a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is a merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.
The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist, who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure. The microphysical event includes the observer just as much as the reality underlying the I Ching comprises subjective, i.e., psychic conditions in the totality of the momentary situation. Just as causality describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind deals with the coincidence of events. The causal point of view tells us a dramatic story about how D came into existence: it took its origin from C, which existed before D, and C in its turn had a father, B, etc. The synchronistic view on the other hand tries to produce an equally meaningful picture of coincidence. How does it happen that A', B', C', D', etc., appear all in the same moment and in the same place? It happens in the first place because the physical events A' and B' are of the same quality as the psychic events C' and D', and further because all are the exponents of one and the same momentary situation. The situation is assumed to represent a legible or understandable picture.
Gpuccio,
It's conversations like this that make participation worthwhile - at least for me. I appreciate your participation. I was hoping to get more of it at the other thread, but I'll take it where I can get it.
You said:
...I have no difficulties to reason in terms of true dualism for all practical purposes, especially for scientific purposes. I really see no differences.
....
... Look, IMO it is not really important for our discussions here if the external world is, in the end, an independent substance (matter), or some form of platonic ideas. The important thing is that, for all practical aspects, it behaves as an external world to us, and that we can oberve objective laws and behaviours in the external world that are certainly difference from the laws and behaviours of our personal consciousness. So, let’s say that we can all adopt, always IMO, what I would call “methodological dualism”, for all practical purposes in science. Without any philosophical prejudice, of course, and only as long as it works (we certainly don’t want to make the same dogmatic errors as neo-darwinists and fans of scientism! ???? ).
I wouldn't have even bothered commenting on threads and creating a couple of new threads about this subject if I agreed with this. Above everything else, I'm a philosophical pragmatist. I don't engage in long term, serious discussion about something that I believe has no practical value.
I agree - we all must behave as if we exist within an objective external world of some sort. Apparently, you think that how we frame that experience makes no meaningful difference.
This goes back to what I said on the Platonic realm thread about a proper theory of mind and how theories that are about a supposed external world instead of about the mental experience itself can be, and probably would be, highly problematic in virtually every way - including both our personal experiences and in scientific research. In other words, how we conceptualize and go about interacting with that kind of experience most likely is a very important, practical matter.
Indeed, it seems to me that whether or not there is an actual reality external to the mind would be an enormously important, value-laden, highly practical point to consider - not because we can ever know the answer, but because it would change something very fundamental in our approach to interpreting experience. The only reason I can see to dismiss it as unimportant would be to assume that there would be no practical or important aspects of our relationship to that experience that an "exterior world" model could possibly miss or get wrong, even though it would be based on a huge, fundamentally incorrect assumption.
Everything we say, do, think, attempt to research, how we attempt to research it, how we formulate ideas about what to research and how we interpret data; everything we think and do and try and how we try and what we consider possible even in our daily lives; entirely revolves around what we think it is we are experiencing in terms of the "external world" experience.
To say that whether or not we are entirely wrong about the most fundamental aspect of our daily life, and the most fundamental aspect of scientific research makes no qualitative difference is simply mind-boggling to me.
Perhaps you an explain how you arrived at that position, or why you consider it valid?
Quantum research data essentially contradicted the materialist paradigm of an actual, independent, material world. The results of that paradigm-shifting model about the very fundamental way we see our experience has literally transformed the lives of virtually everyone on the planet, either directly or indirectly. Before that transformation took place, one might have similarly thought that such a paradigm-shift would make no practical difference.
Here at UD good arguments are made that methodological naturalism put huge blinders on scientific research for no good reason, and that it indeed skews and biases not only research results, but also data interpretations and ideas about how to move forward.
I don't see how one can say, then, that "methodological externalism" (look at me, coining new metpahysical terminology) would not make any practical difference, especially in light of evidence that contra-indicates the externalist model, and a solid logical argument that demonstrates "externalism" to be both unnecessary and most likely problematic.
As far as your view on subjectivism vs objectivism, the entire consensual realm we co-experience has been utterly transformed via the injection of the subjective into what we call our objective world. Regardless of whether or not we directly affect it via observational quantum collapse, we absolutely know we affect it constantly via the injection of our subjective free will, making decisions that change the realm of consensual experience every waking moment of every day. In fact, single individuals have changed the entire world based on their subjective, free will, "mental status" behavior.
Now, what if we all have a more direct effect on our consensual experience via observational status and wave collapse, or some other feature of that relationship that dualistic externalism simply ignores, or cannot see because of ideological bias? Would that, in your opinion, be irrelevant, or extremely important?William J Murray
January 2, 2019
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Hazel:
You said:
My position is that there are more questions than answers (lots more)
That's really a very good thing! Answers are boring, questions are the real thing.
Do you know this?
Ask A Foolish Question
by ROBERT SHECKLEY
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33854/33854-h/33854-h.htmgpuccio
January 2, 2019
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Hazel:
I really think that you, WJM and I are probably in greater agreement than it seems. Please, read my comment #88 to WJM.
I believe that in the end there is little practical difference, for the discussions we have here, between true dualism and some form of idealistic monism. I am probably more a monist philosophically (I think that consciousness is the final reality), but I have no difficulties to reason in terms of true dualism for all practical purposes, especially for scientific purposes. I really see no differences.
Maybe when physics will gain more understanding of the basic laws of reality, especially of the real nature of matter and consciousness and their relationship between them, then these philosophical distinctions may become more important in science. But I am afraid we are still very far from that scenario.
Indeed, I think that you too may be nearer to some form of monism than to rigid dualism, because you said:
in fact, I like the possibility that ultimately both consciousness and physical reality may be different types of manifestation of some larger unifying oneness.
And you apparently are rather distant, like me and WJM, from physicalist monism, as you said:
For the record, I’m interested in this from a dualist viewpoint. I’m not interested in how a materialist sees this.
So, I really think that we are all in more agreement than it appears. Of course, there are probably some philosophical differences, and that is perfectly appropriate. But practically, we seem to believe in a similar worldview.
Look, IMO it is not really important for our discussions here if the external world is, in the end, an independent substance (matter), or some form of platonic ideas. The important thing is that, for all practical aspects, it behaves as an external world to us, and that we can oberve objective laws and behaviours in the external world that are certainly difference from the laws and behaviours of our personal consciousness. So, let's say that we can all adopt, always IMO, what I would call "methodological dualism", for all practical purposes in science. Without any philosophical prejudice, of course, and only as long as it works (we certainly don't want to make the same dogmatic errors as neo-darwinists and fans of scientism! :) ).gpuccio
January 2, 2019
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William J Murray:
Do you believe it is necessary that an actual reality exists outside of that platonic realm?
No. Philosophically I can accept an idealistic monism, even if I don't think that at present that would make any difference for the scientifc discussions we have here. That's why I usually don't engage in the distinction between dualsim and idealistic monism, even if I am probably more a monist than a dualist, philosophically. The important point, IMO, is to falsify physcialist monism, which is a wrong philosophy, incompatible with what we really know from science.
The important point is to believe in the objectivity of the external world in relation to our personal consciousness, whatever the final nature of the external world may be, because it is important to avoid any temptation of subjectivism (and there are many, even in modern philosophy and psychology). We must believe in objective truth, even of relative truths (truth needs not be absolute to be truth). And we must believe that good science is a key to some aspects of that truth.gpuccio
January 2, 2019
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I agree with gpuccio's reply to wjm at 84, and that some objective reality exist outside of mind. wjm appears to be something like the Phenomenologist mentioned in 53. Gpuccio and I are discussing a true dualism, I think, whereby our mind and its attendant qualities are one thing and the external world of which we are aware and in which our body lives is another.hazel
January 1, 2019
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Just for fun. Don't bother to read if Douglas Adams isn't your cup of tea.
http://www.thedailyzen.org/2015/05/27/the-ruler-of-the-universe/hazel
January 1, 2019
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IOWs, the earth and moon and galaxies, and even my physical body, may not be what we think they are as material objects, but neither are figments of my personal imagination.
...
So, I believe in some objective reality, which is probably very different from how we imagine it, maybe even not so objective in the ultimate sense. But it is at least objective in a relative sense, to us that perceive it in our present condition.
When you say that you believe in "some objective reality", do you require that to be external to mind? Not "individual mental states", but rather the platonic realm of mind. Obviously, platonic forms, values and self-evident truths are parts of an objective reality we can directly experience - and that's in the realm of mind. Do you believe it is necessary that an actual reality exists outside of that platonic realm?William J Murray
January 1, 2019
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William J Murray:
I appreciate your contribution.
My personal position is not necessarily that the external world exists really as "matter". But I think that it has some objective existence, whatever it is, in the sense that it's not me that generate it from my personal consciousness.
IOWs, the earth and moon amd galaxies, and even my physical body, may not be what we think they are as material objects, but neither are figments of my personal imagination.
An object that exists, say a table, interacts in similar ways with me and with other people, so that we can share similar and objective experiences of it (its dimensions, position, and so on. We measure time and space in a common way, whatever they are in essence.
So, I believe in some objective reality, which is probably very different from how we imagine it, maybe even not so objective in the ultimate sense. But it is at least objective in a relative sense, to us that perceive it in our present condition.gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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Just FYI: I've been out all day, but I am looking forward to working my way through Gpucco's posts, and appreciate the conversation. Later ...hazel
January 1, 2019
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Gpuccio said:
Matter and objects do exist “outside of our consciousness”, even if we perceive them thorugh our consciousness (I am not a solipsist). So, our body and everything else that is an object are part of the “physical reality”.
The problem with this is that (1) we haven't found any "matter" (it appears that matter does not exist) and (2) given your definition of consciousness and "our mental state" (two different things - a view I share, BTW), an external "objective" physical world comprised of matter is not only entirely unnecessary to avoid solipsism, it's useless when it comes to any experiential theory. The only things we have available to research, categorize and model are what you call "representations" or what I call "mental experiences". Whether or not they are actually about an exterior reality is entirely irrelevant, and basing our views on the assumption such an external reality exists is, at best, highly problematic.William J Murray
January 1, 2019
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Hazel at #76:
Good thoughts and good questions.
I hope you have already read my previous comments to you, so that I can go on with my arguments starting from what I have already said.
I am interested in exploring this question, and I’m particularly interested in the interaction between consciousness and the rest of the mind. (For the record, I’m interested in this from a dualist viewpoint. I’m not interested in how a materialist sees this.)
So am I! :)
For instance, what is the capital of France?
I am sure that the word “Paris” came into your consciousness as soon as you saw the question, either as an internal verbal articulation or in an image of the printed word. In addition, you might have had an instantaneous sense of where Paris in on a map, and if you’ve spent time in Paris probably other images as well.
Correct. And this shows very well the "sensorial" aspect of many mental proceedings. Again, I would like to quote NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) about that. Our mind works mostly through sensorial representations. I don't think that's all the story, but it is certainly true at many levels.
My question is where was all this information when you weren’t being conscious of it? Is it accurate to say it was in the subconscious? Is the subconscious part of the mind? Or is all that information stored only in the material brain, but the consciousness has virtually instantaneous access to it?
First of all, as I have tried to explain, for me there is absolutely no doubt that the subconscious is definitely part of consciousness and of the mind. Subconscious contents are absolutely represented in subjective consciousness, even if at a level that is rather different from what we call "the conscious mind", and that I have called, more precisely, the waking state of consciousness.
That said, you ask where the memory of information is stored.
I think that both the answers you propose are true. They are stored, in part, objectively in the brain. And they are stored, in part, subjectively in the subconscious mind.
Of course, we really don't know exactly how it works. Memory is still a big mystery. But I imagine something like that:
a) We have an objective repository of stored information, in the brain. That is very much like the hard disk of a computer. Information is stored objectively, and it is not represented subjectively, unless it is read at some time.
b) Then we have a RAM compartment, where information is actively read and represented. However, this subjective compartment is formed by at least two big parts:
b1) The subconscious mind, where the information is represented in the background
b2) The so called conscious mind, where the infromation is run in the foreground of attention.
For a physiological model, just think of the two kinds of vision:
a) Peripheral vision
b) Macular or central vision
It is also important to say that even mental events (implying a conscious representation) are not necessarily independent from physical structures. Mental representations probably rely actively on the working of parts of the brain structures, for example for elaboration of data, in the same way that a person playing a videogame relies on the computer and the game on the hard disk to go on playing. However, the playing is a conscious experience, even if it uses machine work to go on.
A less simple example. It is a common phenomena for a person to be stuck working on a problem of some sort. They take a break, and the next morning they have a new insight and get unstuck. I think it’s common to feel that you were working on the problem in the subconscious. Again, was this creative activity going on in the mind, or just in the material brain?
This is a slightly different aspect. I believe that all creative activity comes from consciousness, often at the level of the subconscious mind. Only consciousness, subjective experience, has the basic intuitions of cognition and feeling that generate creative thinking.
So, I would say that "inspirations", of all kinds, come from consciousness, either from the conscious, or the subconscious, or any other type of mind.
Of course, it is perfectly possible that physical brain activities of computing are involved in the process at all times, as explained at the previous point.
So I’m interested in people’s thoughts on this. To what extent, and how, is the mind different, and “bigger” somehow, than our conscious experience, and how do consciousness and the subconscious interact and work together?
Thoughts?
Well, I believe that I have given a few thoughts. Maybe too many of them ! :)
Looking forward to your feedback.gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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John_a_designer at #75:
I agree with what you say.
However, in the basic sense, my definition of consciousness, as I have explained in my previous comments to Hazel, requires only the existence of subjective representations, of any form.
So, it just requires a subject that represents something in a subjective way.
Therefore, of all the important aspects you quote, only two are really necessary to define consciousness:
a) Qualia
b) Persistence of Self-Identity
All the others are important dimensions of subjective experiences, but not really necessary to define the existence of a conscious experience.
Maybe I could add that all conscious experiences, even the simples ones, have always at least two important aspects: a cognition and a feeling. Those two aspects seem to be absolutely intertwined in all conscious representation. Meaning and intentionality can be seen as structures forms of cognition and feeling, respectively.
It is interesting to note that those two basic dimensions of subjective experience have no correspondence in the objective world (objects have no cognitions and no feelings). It is also interesting that they are the best rationale for ID theory, because they can explain why conscious beings can generate complex functional information, while objects cannot.gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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Hazel at #72:
I apologize for the messed formatting at the end of the previous post! :)
Let's go on.
You say:
This assumes that everything outside of consciousness is part of the physical body, but that’s not been my picture at all. Several times I’ve said we should be saying mind, not consciousness, as, it seems to me that consciousness is just part of the mind.
OK, I think that here you are using "consciousness" to mean the waking state of the self. I hope I have clarified that I use the word in a different sense.
So, using my meaning, "everything outside of consciousness" just mean "everything that is perceived as an object", or "everything that is not a subjective representation". Matter and objects do exist "outside of our consciousness", even if we perceive them thorugh our consciousness (I am not a solipsist). So, our body and everything else that is an object are part of the "physical reality".
Everything perceived, instead, is a cnscious representation. As I have already explained, I call the sum total of cosncious representations "mind". However, the mind and the subject are two different things, because even if mental representations are not physical objects, they are anyway "objects" perceived by the self, the common subject of all presonal representations.
So, just to simplify, we have:
a) The subject, which is one and remains the same
b) The mental objects, that are not physical, but are only representations in the subject's consciousness
c) The physical objects, including the body, which are inferred as existing independently outside us and outside our consciousness, even if we perceive them through our mind.
Paying attention to my sub-conscious in order to find out what I “really” think or “really” want to do is, it seems, commonly found in many religious contexts: meditation, prayer, music, seclusion, etc. are all used by people to quiet the conscious mind so as to be be able to “hear” or “see” better what the larger self knows or wants to do.
I absolutely agree.
So I disagree with your characterization of the sub-conscious.
What characterization? There is, probably, a misunderstanding, as I have tried to clarify. What you call "sub-conscious" is for me absolutely part of cosnciousness, maybe the most important part.
To me, “I” am something much larger than just my consciousness. I have access to all sorts of information that resides someplace in the mind/body that I am. I don’t know where that dividing line is, or what that interface is like, but I am pretty sure that interface is not the line between consciousness and non-consciousness.
I suppose that I agree, making the appropriate corrections to the temrs. The real line is between subjective representations (the self and its mental contents) and objects.
Look, to be more clear. There can be no doubt that our body is a physical object. Maybe it is more than that, accordign to how we define "body", but there can be no doubt that, at some level, it is a physicla object. I can look at my hand and perceive it in my sight in the same way that I perceive any external object (even if I have also an inner perception of it). We can observe our brains through various kinds of imaging, and when we die they can be mnipulated like any other object.
When I act, the final part is certainly physical: my hand moves, or I speak through my vocal cords, and so on.
I can think that I move my hand, I can imagine the movement, and those are mental representations in my consciousness. But when I really move it, that is a physical event.
The real line, the real hard problem of consciousness, is: why is there a subjective world, and how does it interact with the objective world?
Did I?
My point was:
"I really believe that there is no possible alternative, in a physicalist monism. No free will, no choices, a destiny that cannot be changed by our sentient I.
But you say that you feel and believe differently."
Maybe that was not clear. I meant: you say that you feel and believe that it is not true that there is no free will, no choices, a destiny that cannot be changed by our sentient I. I still think that you feel and believe that way. I understand that my statement could be misinterpreted.
It seems that through this entire discussion I’ve been thinking about the mind as different than the body. And I’ve agreed that the most likely avenue of how this happens is through whatever quantum reality is “really” like: in fact, I like the possibility that ultimately both consciousness and physical reality may be different types of manifestation of some larger unifying oneness. But that’s not a belief I have adopted as “my position”: it’s just something that seems like it might possibly be where the resolution of this interface issue lies.
OK, my point is simply:
If you believe in free will, and that we can change our personal destiny, you definitely need an interface between consciousness/mind and the physical body. There is no other possibility, because those who believe in a physicalist monism do not need any interface, but certainly cannot admit free will (the libertarian form). And those who admit free will (libertarian) cannot be physicalist monists, and do need an interface between subjective experiences and objective facts, because that's the only way that subjective experiences can modify objective facts.
So, my point is: if you believe that we can modify our personal destiny, you definitely need an interface. If it is not at quantum level, have you any better options?
But that’s not a belief I have adopted as “my position”: it’s just something that seems like it might possibly be where the resolution of this interface issue lies.
I am perfectly fine with the idea that we don't really know where the interface is and how it works, even if, as explained, the quantum hypothesis is at present, IMO, the only one that makes sense.
However, I would like to understand if you agree that, if one believes in free will and in modifying one's destiny, then an interface is absolutely necessay, somewhere, between the iceberg of consciousness and the physical object that is the body.
I have agreed, as stated above, that the quantum explanation is a good candidate. And yes, every action we take has the effect of changing the course of our life, from the smallest of decision to the largest. As I’ve said above, I feel the reality of my will just as much as I feel the reality of my consciousness. Just because I think there are sub-conscous components to those things in the subconscious part of my mind that are available to my consciousness doesn’t make them any less part of “me”. Having the freedom to make choices, and taking responsibility for those choices is an essential part of my personal philosophy about living and being a human being
I absolutely agree. Having clarified that for me the "subconscious" is definitely part of cosnciousness, and very likely an important part of free will.
I suppose that the above parapgraph confirms that you believe in free will exactly as I do. So, do you agree that believing in free will, wherever it is and however it works, implies the need for an interface between conscious representations and physical objects?gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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Hazel at #72:
You say:
Similarly, I feel strongly that I can will my behavior, but my experience is also that decisions, or at least decision-possibilities, arise from the sub-conscious, and then my consciousness “feels” and articulates them as action. But I’m also aware that all of this is done in conjunction with sensations from the body, so I can’t really draw the line sometimes between mindfully driven action and bodily driven action.
OK, I will go directly to the important point here. I have never said, least of all thought, that our free will must be identified with our waking state of consciousness. Indeed, like you, I believe that we cannot say where our free will comes into action. But, certainly, it comes into action is some conscious state, somewhere in the "iceberg".
A second important point. Very important.
Free will in no ways means that our actions are completely free. That is a sever misunderstanding of free will.
Of course our actions, and even our thoughts, are deeply influenced and conditioned by a lot of things: the outer worlds, sensations, memories, our past history, our body, and so on. We cannot do everything (we are not omnipotent). And we cannot certainly do everything that we seem to be able to do.
I always refer to the example of drug addiction. While for a non addicted person it is very easy to decide not to take drugs, that could be actually impossible for an addict, at least in his current condition.
There is also a big difference between what we think we can do and what we can really do. In both directions. There are many things that we think we can do and we cannot do, and there are many things that we think we cannot do and we can do.
So, our actions are always severely conditioned and limited.
So, in what sense do we have free will?
We have free will because there is never any situation where we can act only in one way. We always have a choice, even if our choices are severely limited.
Going back to drug addition, maube my choice as a drug addict is not, at present, to avoid taking drugs. Maybe my choice, today, is only to choose how I feel whne I take drugs: shall I surrender to self pity, for example, and to negative feelings that will reinforce my habit, or can I try to look at myself with some objectivity, maybe to lay a tiny foundation in my mind for some future, bigger change?
I have a choice, but my choice can be very limited, maybe even not obvious to any outer observer.
So, there is no line to draw: our actions are always driven, maybe even mainly driven, by our body or by outer influences; but they are never completely determined by those things. There is always, always, some choice, even a small choice.
Therefore, ther is no fixed destiny: but to change our personal destiny in a detectable way may require, in some conditions, time and effort. IOWs, a persistent good use of our free will, however small its range can appear.
You say:
This is very hard to describe, but I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to pay attention to the interplay between my consciousness and my overall self. In this context, stating exactly what will is, or free will is, as an experiential (as opposed to ontological) issue is not easy</blockquote.
I agree. Maybe it is impossible. But we can be certain that free will is there, in some part of the iceberg of our consciousness.
I believe that free will could express itslef, mainly, in how we react innerly to what happens to us. Our final actions could be only the ultimate consequence of those inner reactions. So, like in the example of drug addiction, free will could be found mainly in how we feel when something happens to us, rather than in how we act.
I also believe that we ooften think of being free to act in many things where we are not really free, and we often think that we are not free in things where we are, indeed, free enough. IOWs, we are often rather deludes about what we can or cannot do freely.
More in next post.
gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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Hazel at #72:
Thank you for sharing in detail your ideas. I think that we agree on more things than you expect, and that there are some aspects of what I think of consciousness that are not clear to you (not your fault: I have not made them explicit in this discussion). So, I will follow your arguments and try to clarify my position better.
You say:
My position is that there are more questions than answers (lots more), and that I am more interested in understanding my experience of consciousness than I am in coming to a personal conclusion about the ontological issues.
And I agree. Even if I have some ontological views /as probably have you), my discussions here, even about such subtle issues like consciousness and free will, are always essentially empirical. So, I treat consciousness for what we can observe of it, and I am not interested, at least at this level of discussion, in debating ontological issues. That's why I never refer to consciousness and matter as "substances", for example, and I am not a big fan of concepts like dualism and monism. IOWs, I want to stay as empirical as possible, and not get too philosophical, at least in this context.
My consciousness is real: that is an immediate fact.
.
Of course, I absolutely agree. It can be useful to specify that my personal consciousness is an observed fact for me, as yours is for you, while your consciousness is an inference by analogy for me, as mine is for you. But it is an inference so strong and fundamental that I have no douts that it is true.
Then you say:
But as I pointed out in my very post in the Inane thread (here), my experience is that a great deal of what is in my consciousness arises from outside (below?) my consciousness, which I think of as my sub-conscious, and then my conscious self processes them. For example, I articulate the holistic thoughts into a stream of words.
.
OK, here is the important point, where you probably don't understand my position (again, not your fault). So, I will try to clarify.
And, to clarify, it is always a good thing to give a couple of definitions. Of course, these are my definitions, but I hope they can help you understand what I believe.
a) Consciousness: any process where one perceiving "I" (or self, if you prefer) experiences many changing subjective representations. It's not important the level, detail, intensity, structure of the representations. If there are subjective representations, of any kind and level, that is consciousness. There is a self that refers to itself all those changing forms. Let's call that self "the subject".
b) Therefore, consciousness includes all different states where the subject perceives something, however different the conditions. Let's say that we are manly aware of the state where our self perceives the outer worlds during our waking hours. That's certainly the state of consciousness that we understand best. But what you call "subconscious" is consciousness just the same. And the state of dreams, and of deep sleep. And NDEs, mystical experiences. And even altered states induced by drugs, or diseases, and so on. Different states of consciousness, but cosnciousness all the same. And the subject, our self, remains the same.
c) I have notices some confusion in our discussion about the terms "mind" and "consciousness". You seem to use "consciousness" to denote the waking state of the self, and "mind" in a broader sense. Of course, anyone can use words as he likes. However, I use "consciousness" as the process including all subjective experiences. I use "mind", instead, to indicate the more or less structured contents of consciousness, IOWs the forms experienced by the conscious self.
So, when you say:
"a great deal of what is in my consciousness arises from outside (below?) my consciousness, which I think of as my sub-conscious, and then my conscious self processes them."
I would reformulate the same thought as:
"a great deal of what is in my waking consciousness arises from outside (below?) my waking consciousness, which I think of as my sub-conscious consciousness, and then my waking self processes them."
In this form, I absolutely agree. I believe that thw waking self is only the "tip of the icenerg" of what consciousness is. While it is certainly an important component, it is only part of the general scenario.
You say:
"For example, I articulate the holistic thoughts into a stream of words."
I agree. What you call here "the holistic thought" is for me the deepest cosncious experience of meaning, that is then organized in coded form by the waking mind to be expressed to the external world.
In next post, I will go on commenting about your thoughts, to see how these ideas apply to the problem of free will.gpuccio
January 1, 2019
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JAD writes, “A basic question that should be asked before we talk about consciousness and mind is: what exactly is consciousness?”
I am interested in exploring this question, and I’m particularly interested in the interaction between consciousness and the rest of the mind. (For the record, I’m interested in this from a dualist viewpoint. I’m not interested in how a materialist sees this.)
For instance, what is the capital of France?
I am sure that the word “Paris” came into your consciousness as soon as you saw the question, either as an internal verbal articulation or in an image of the printed word. In addition, you might have had an instantaneous sense of where Paris in on a map, and if you’ve spent time in Paris probably other images as well.
My question is where was all this information when you weren’t being conscious of it? Is it accurate to say it was in the subconscious? Is the subconscious part of the mind? Or is all that information stored only in the material brain, but the consciousness has virtually instantaneous access to it?
A less simple example. It is a common phenomena for a person to be stuck working on a problem of some sort. They take a break, and the next morning they have a new insight and get unstuck. I think it’s common to feel that you were working on the problem in the subconscious. Again, was this creative activity going on in the mind, or just in the material brain?
So I’m interested in people’s thoughts on this. To what extent, and how, is the mind different, and “bigger” somehow, than our conscious experience, and how do consciousness and the subconscious interact and work together?
Thoughts?hazel
January 1, 2019
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A basic question that should be asked before we talk about consciousness and mind is: what exactly is consciousness?
Egnor gives a descriptive list of some the key properties of consciousness. None of this is original with him. You can find numerous articles and papers on-line which deal with each one of these properties in much more detail. For example, the following SEP article is a discussion just about “qualia” which cites Frank Jackson’s seminal 1982 paper on the subject, "Epiphenomenal Qualia," along with others.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/
Intentionality
Intentionality is the “aboutness” or meaning of a mental state, the ability of a mental state to refer to something outside of itself. Ink on paper has no meaning unless it is conferred by a mind, which wrote it or read it…
Qualia
Qualia is subjective experience, which is first person ontology. You can describe pain, using science or literature or whatever. But the experience of pain is something qualitatively different. There is nothing in science which infers subjectivity…
Persistence of Self-Identity
We are the same person throughout our lives, despite a continual turn-over of matter in our brains. The matter that constitutes your brain today is different matter, for the most part, than the matter that constituted your brain ten years ago. Furthermore, your brain matter is organized differently now than it was ten years ago. Yet your sense of identity, which is a fundamental characteristic of minds, is continuous over time…
Restricted Access
Restricted access means that I, and only I, experience my thoughts first-hand. I can choose to describe them to others, and others may be able to explain better than I some of the ramifications of my thoughts, but only I experience them…
Incorrigibility
Incorrigibility, which is related to restricted access, means the unassailable knowledge of one’s own thoughts. If I am thinking of the color red, no one can credibly refute that fact. Of course, I may be lying about what I am thinking, or I may be mistaken about the implications of my thoughts, but I experience my thoughts in a way that no one else does…
Free Will
“If the mind is entirely caused by matter, it is difficult to understand how free will can exist. Matter is governed by fixed laws, and if our thoughts are entirely the product of brain chemistry, then our thoughts are determined by brain chemistry. But chemistry doesn’t have “truth” or “falsehood,” or any other values for that matter. It just is…”
https://evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super/
Egnor then points out,
So is the materialist inference that the mind is caused entirely by the brain plausible? Please note that materialism has failed to offer any explanation for any of the six salient characteristics of the mind. Not a single salient characteristic of the mind is a property of matter. The strict materialistic explanation for the mind — the attribution of immaterial mental acts and properties to brain matter — is, by definition, a materialist superstition, a “false irrational conception of causation in nature maintained despite evidence to the contrary.”
john_a_designer
January 1, 2019
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PK, again, I have already explicitly answered that generation of coded data strings is relevant and is not confined to DNA. DNA, for example is not ASCII coded. KFkairosfocus
December 31, 2018
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@KF #71
Strings? Do they have to be strings of DNA or will it suffice to generate other kinds of strings?Pater Kimbridge