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I understand. Try this perspective. EVERYTHING that exists (in whatever shape or form or lack thereof) in this universe MUST be some form of energy (that is its substance). That means that what you produce in the way of thoughts and feelings are not "will-o-the-wisps." They exist and have to be accounted for as "something" within the universe at large. When your "instantaneous awareness" is produced . . . it is real and it interacts with the universe in a very identifiable way . . . we here would call it "Arequipa consciousness" . . . NOT your body because we do not interact with it. There is no other form of energy like it and it puts together very unique thoughts and communicates them to us in the form of writing. It forms "ideas" and "concepts" that are real and exist as evidenced by your using them and communicating them to us. Step back from BEING the producer and try to see them as the universe sees them from afar . . . as energy composites. Try to visualize them coming from your head as energy forms within a Matrix-like view of our reality . . . a cool movie, but not very realistic.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Do you mean that the universe / existence / god sees them from afar, or are you simply suggesting I imagine them from that perspective? If so, to what purpose?
I am suggesting that you imagine them from that perspective. The purpose being to break you out of the typically dominant "spectator" from a privileged inner perspective of thoughts and feelings that are not themselves seen as any tangible part of that reality. It is an attempt to get you to realize that your inner experience of BEING . . . is itself an energy form existing in the universe and COULD (if we had the technology) be observed from afar in all its unique experiences of BEING-NESS. It is THAT energy form that must be accounted for materially . . . as Gaylen seeks to do. I am not sanguine about his chances of ever doing so because in his reductionism he ignores the centrality of the very composite that DOES the experiencing of BEING . . . our consciousness (meaning the totality of our Self as unconscious/consciousness).
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I can understand that everything is ultimately energy but saying that this puts any two beings in some particular relationship other than random happenstance is like saying that everything in the ocean ultimately swims in water. It's kind of meaningless in terms of connecting, say, two sea creatures thousands of miles apart in any way that matters to the existence of either creature. Nor does it explain the subjective experience of being either creature. Nor does it point to a common higher reality for both other than the obvious fact that they are both water-breathers and the trivial fact that they might just possibly at some point breathe some of the same molecules of water at different times. To me this is all "so-what" information, not "ah-ha I get it" information.
This paragraph is entirely written from and evaluated from that privileged inner spectator perspective exempting from consideration your own thoughts and feelings as material phenomena . . . that are doing and experiencing the results of the evaluation. Was this any clearer?
All of us know our own brains subjectively, and this subjective experience is the only experience that we know without inference. From this non-inferential subjective experience we infer the existence of an external world. (I agree with Arequipa that this is an excellent - evolutionarily advantageous - inference, but it is nonetheless an inference.) We can use inferential knowledge of the external world (e.g., neurons, etc.) to understand the dynamics of qualia, but we cannot deductively derive everything that can be known about the nature of non-inferential knowledge purely from our inferential knowledge. (Induction goes beyond deduction, and therefore cannot be reduced to pure deduction.)
Normal common sense..
Play on words again, not the least bit surprised.
I wonder how the subjective experience can be known without being inferred itself, firstly....? So now it becomes who inferred who first..? right ? The world or Mr Who Knows... right....check
Sorry the new born needs either the lips sucked or butt smacked or something ( and so it goes)...so the only way the subjective experience can happen is by being inferred itself > firstly...."thats whats going on".( exp imag or what ever.
Apnea....older people or any age...emotional issue... psychological ( not being inferred...) no breath...so wheres this got any validity at all?..even the inhaler.
So this is absolutely wrong and a very key issue. The..I..is a potential and not 'part of the consciousness but an ongoing consequence in every conscious moment...partners .... consciousness bridges to the i...thats how the i...becomes in the becoming, by being indifferent to the consciousness but affected. Will and tendency follow the I in its ongoing dynamic consequence to conscious outcome in moment to moment actuality.. A potential in measure out of value in the aware conscious reality. Thats how that works, its a system alongside the setting. Inference from the setting...inference <to> the I... The inference from the I is not part of consciousness...it allows value, measure only in consciousness. The Will to survive, followed by particularities in keeping with the system in the ongoing becoming, which would be in every moment, a dynamic system.
Last edited by stargazzer; 04-26-2013 at 02:05 AM..
I know. I said so. You said so. We both agreed. There is no need to keep repeating it. And as I keep saying, wild speculation is a wonderful thing which our species needs more of. However as an interesting or substantiated set of hypotheses it fails entirely and I simply request than when you get past the stage of wild speculation and into anything even remotely substantive then by all means come back to me with it, I will be all ears.
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Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
But the need for some sort of bridge between the subjectivity-friendly terms of psychology and neuroscience, and the purely objective terminology of physics is not speculative.
Or is it. As I said in my previous posts just because we have no explanation for consciousness now does not mean we never will have. Because certain areas of our science have not explained it all... this does not mean they never will. So simply declaring there _must_ be more to it than this is speculation.
Imagine being in a time before Germ Theory of Disease. People then might too have declared that there was no material explanation for illness and epilepsy and more. They might have also said "There must be something else to explain it, material explanations have failed". But then later the material explanations DID come and such demands for "something more" were silenced.
So I reserve judgement. Our material sciences might come up with a full explanation of consciousness in time... or your wild speculations about deeper explanations might too turn out to be true. But until then we are not warranted to declare that something more, some kind of magical bridge, _must_ be there.
Until then I am happy to read any and all material on the matter. Why only this week I was reading some "out there" material by McFadden, Pockett and others which, given its liberal use of terms like "Fields" would probably get more than a few posters around here wet with excitement.
Part 2 because this is important and I see Nozz post and its another good one.
Where is the will to survive with your scheme G..?
The I isn't the unconscious mind for things to fit. Will use sleep for clarity... When sleeping something use's history and experience ...where is it getting it..? not from itself, it is getting it >from the unconscious and using simulated stories to bridge the suggestion for what.. survival...yes but survival for what in this instance..the biology , yes but why..? because the I wants more experience for greater what..? measure in the volume of I...( character- value whatever.) using dreams for clarity...but its a moment to moment deal.
Otherwise the I is not functional...why... because you need a translator if something is being translated. So there is a momentum to translate..it is a value and bridging to the unconscious....If its only the unconscious and, a translation, then something is missing, what is that something..? So, *Who's doing the translating ? and not only that, its rational.
So this inference is an important part. It could be argued well then, your just arguing survival. Well yes thats correct but the question here is what motive? for survival which includes reason ? in being or becoming...for what..? which has nothing to do with consciousness or unconscious ego but measure or what can only be an absolute, in value. And the suggested operations of whats going on every waking moment. I believe consciousness is every moment and a product, not the common.
Last edited by stargazzer; 04-26-2013 at 03:58 AM..
I know. I said so. You said so. We both agreed. There is no need to keep repeating it. And as I keep saying, wild speculation is a wonderful thing which our species needs more of. However as an interesting or substantiated set of hypotheses it fails entirely and I simply request than when you get past the stage of wild speculation and into anything even remotely substantive then by all means come back to me with it, I will be all ears.
Or is it. As I said in my previous posts just because we have no explanation for consciousness now does not mean we never will have. Because certain areas of our science have not explained it all... this does not mean they never will. So simply declaring there _must_ be more to it than this is speculation.
Imagine being in a time before Germ Theory of Disease. People then might too have declared that there was no material explanation for illness and epilepsy and more. They might have also said "There must be something else to explain it, material explanations have failed". But then later the material explanations DID come and such demands for "something more" were silenced.
So I reserve judgement. Our material sciences might come up with a full explanation of consciousness in time... or your wild speculations about deeper explanations might too turn out to be true. But until then we are not warranted to declare that something more, some kind of magical bridge, _must_ be there.
Until then I am happy to read any and all material on the matter. Why only this week I was reading some "out there" material by McFadden, Pockett and others which, given its liberal use of terms like "Fields" would probably get more than a few posters around here wet with excitement.
I concur. The nub of this Qualia-slant on the Thread subject is whether the dualism -conclusion is justified as unavoidable fact or whether monism and the (admittedly annoying to those who want the materialist default unseated Now, now, now) awaited materialist explanation of the 'what' aspects of Qualia (not covered by the How and the Why which appear to have adequate have materialist explanations) can be regarded (like dark matter, abiogenesis and Nothing from Nothing cosmic origins) as hypotheses or suggestions which await explanation or proof, or whether we can prove conclusively through philosophic argument that it can never ever do do so, which is for sure the only justification for unseating monism/materialism right now.
I don't see how it possibly can do so, because unexplained questions are simply unexplained and because philosophy cannot prove the unexplained but at best come up with hypotheses which it is up to science to find ways of validating.
There is no help for it. Materialism, which we know exists as material and its workings has to be the default until 'something more' can be proven. Just as disbelief or reservation of belief (which is different from saying we know now that there cannot ever be proof of a god - tho logic is consistent) is the logical default until a god is proven.
Whether I get your point or not is still debatable. Why do you assert that I do not see my perspectives as part of a larger reality? I do not deny that and have no reason to do so. All I'm saying is that I have no data to work with other than what I can observe. My connectedness to the rest of reality has some metaphysical implications such as realizing my common cause with other humans and indeed other living things and even in some sense the universe. But nonduality is pretty useless on a moment to moment basis. My clients don't pay me for what I might do on a meditation mat. My family expects to interact with me through the five senses we share. I'm sitting right now in a tire service center getting my snow tires swapped out ... what do I do with the information that my consciousness is a material phenomenon that relates to getting my car serviced or my hair cut or buying breakfast?
I wonder how the subjective experience can be known without being inferred itself, firstly....? So now it becomes who inferred who first..? right ?
Just to be sure we are on the same page regarding the meaning of inference, I paste a few key sentences:
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Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.
The process by which a conclusion is inferred from multiple observations is called inductive reasoning. The conclusion may be correct or incorrect, or correct to within a certain degree of accuracy, or correct in certain situations. Conclusions inferred from multiple observations may be tested by additional observations.
My claim is that we do not infer the qualitative nature of experience. I believe that a one year old child can experience what it is like to see blue, but I do not think that the child arrives at this experience through a process of reasoning.
Blue is not a rational conclusion derived from a set of premises. Blue just is whatever it is directly experienced as being. It is just THIS experience right HERE. (Indexical terms, ostensively defined.)
Now one source of possible confusion: Some inferences are made unconsciously. If we don’t take time for careful introspection, we can easily take certain things as “given†without realizing that they are assumptions. Our belief in the external world is like this. Prior to our scientific understanding of perception, people commonly assumed that “this cup†that I directly perceive is an “external object.†In retrospect, now that we know about the neurological basis of perception, it is obvious that the cup that I directly perceive is not the external cup. What I am directly aware of is a neurological representation of what I assume to be an object that exists “out there†apart from the neurological activity that constitutes my perception. I assume that the moon continues to exist when I’m not looking at it. This is an excellent assumption (I would probably be insane if I didn’t make this assumption), but it is nonetheless an assumption.
When I look at the neurons of someone’s brain, I am not directly perceiving objects “out there.†I am directly perceiving my own neurological representation of what I assume to be objects “out there†in my field of vision. Everything that I directly experience is subjective. I don’t arrive at the qualitative feel of my direct experiences by inference; my qualitative experiences are non-inferential. From this non-inferential knowledge I infer the existence of neurons, atoms, gravity, the laws of physics, etc.
I can look at data from a living brain and infer that I am seeing neural activity that constitutes someone’s experience of blue. But what the hell is this “blue†that I am inferring the existence of? If I am neurologically incapable of experiencing blue non-inferentially, I can still infer from neurological data that this person is experiencing blue, but if I am incapable of experiencing blue directly (i.e., non-inferentially), then all of my expertise allowing me to infer the experience of blue falls short of a complete understanding of what it is that I’m inferring the exist of (i.e., the qualitative experience of blue). This “falling short†in my inferential understanding of blue stems from the subjective (non-inferential) nature of qualia.
I think I am beginning to get it, and my initial raction is, 'so what?' A child blinks without even thinking about it a dog wees on a tree without having to attend training seminars... I won't give a string of examples of what we do instinctively or what our bodies do for us without us needing to Will it.
If qualia applies to the effect of a mental screen on which the brain projects a comprehensible image of the light bounced off a cup, or a mental audio -image of what sound wave patterns impinge on our aural mechanism, or what mental code translates into something that conveys information about likes and dislikes on the basis of taste receptor signals, then aha, I get it.
And Aha, it is a question that I might never have asked myself unless philosophy posed it for us, and it is 'Hard' to answer at the present time. But aha, I would never remotely imagine that physiological and mental research will not ever be able to explain what the process is in purely physiological (which is to say monist/materialis AND naturalistic) terms. And related to evolution, too.
Yes, there may still be some unexplained aspects of what blueness or sweetness means to us, but I don't find it hard to suppose it possible that even that materialist promissory note will be honoured. It certainly seems wrong to me to claim that it can (almost by definition) never happen which is absolutely what we need to say to make credible a claim that dualism is proven fact rather than being just an alternative view should research show (in some way I can't suggest(1) that there is some input of human perception definitely linked to something other than the light, sound et bouncing of solid (2) objects.
(1) Just as I can't suggest any way in which goddunnit in terms of cosmic creation, abiogenesis or a postulated soul can ever be proven but, frankly as an atheist, that ain't my problem
The nub of this Qualia-slant on the Thread subject is whether the dualism -conclusion is justified as unavoidable fact or whether monism ... can be regarded ... as hypotheses or suggestions which await explanation or proof, or whether we can prove conclusively through philosophic argument that it can never ever do so, which is for sure the only justification for unseating monism/materialism right now.
To whom it may concern: I have a favor to ask. In four statements below I am going to make some quick comments about the nature of qualia. What I'd like you to do is this: For each statement, can you explain exactly how this statement logically implies dualism and therefore contradicts materialism/monism?
(1) Qualia are the directly experienced (i.e., non-inferentially known) contents of experience.
If you cannot explain how statement (1) by itself implies that materialism is false, then you can move on and add this:
(2) Qualia are subjectively known, which is to say, a particular quale can only be experienced "here and now" from the perspective of a particular physical process.
If you cannot explain how statement (2) by itself (or a combination of both) implies that materialism is false, then you can move on and add this:
(3) Qualia exist because qualitative subjectivity is an attribute of energy. There is, in other words, something it is like to be certain kinds of processes. Let's suppose that X is one of these processes (e.g., X might be my brain at this moment). Since only X can be X at this moment, no other process can experience what it is like to be X at this moment.
And, finally, you can add this:
(4) If the potential for qualitative subjectivity is an attribute of energy, then the potential for qualitative subjectivity must have existed in the unified energy state of the BB singularity. (Just to be clear: We can assume that this potential was not actualized until after billions of years of organic evolution.) If the potential for qualitative subjectivity existed in the BB singularity, then a genuine "theory of everything" that explain how everything that exists emerged from the BB must include some theoretical constructs that logically imply the possible emergence of qualitative subjectivity.
If you are not able to prove that a combination of these statements imply that materialism is false, but you still believe that my concept of qualia contradicts materialism, then can you please indicate what else I have said that leads you to believe that my concept of qualia contradicts materialism?
Basically, I'm trying to identify precisely which aspects of my concept of qualia (and/or my theory of a subjective attribute of energy) you think contradict materialism, and which (if any) might be harmless. Personally, I believe that all of these statements are compatible with materialism, but if they are not, then I need someone to help me understand how they contradict materialism.
If qualia applies to the effect of a mental screen on which the brain projects a comprehensible image of the light bounced off a cup...
I suppose that's one way of putting it. Congratulations
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But aha, I would never remotely imagine that physiological and mental research will not ever be able to explain what the process is in purely physiological (which is to say monist/materialis AND naturalistic) terms. And related to evolution, too.
I agree. Ya'll keep saying that this is a hard problem, but it is a problem that materialist metaphysics can, at least in principle, eventually solve. Again, I agree. What I've been saying is this: The way for materialism to solve the hard problem is for physics to incorporate some sort of subjective terms into its fundamental theories. I've suggested the speculative notion of "a subjective attribute of energy" that can be described in terms of a "qualitative map" (in the form of a "mathematical landscape"), but I'm open to other ideas. I just offer this as one brainstorming idea of what it might mean to incorporate subjectivity into physics in a way that might, possibly someday, be able to solve the hard problem. I'm certainly wide open to other suggestions about how this might be done.
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I think I am beginning to get it, and my initial raction is, 'so what?' A child blinks without even thinking about it a dog wees on a tree without having to attend training seminars... I won't give a string of examples of what we do instinctively or what our bodies do for us without us needing to Will it. 
