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jogill
climber
Colorado
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John, by vacuous mental state I mean a mental state without objects of attention. Not perjorative. As Ed said, good to hear you are continuing to contribute your expertise to the climbing world.
Mike, good example of construction in reading and experiencing. But in the TV example the content remains when the narrative disappears. If you close your eyes and merely listen to a TV drama you become a more active participant in the narrative construction.
In mathematics there are some who are constuctivists. They require proofs of theorems to be direct and describe theoretical constructive approaches: clear logical narratives from start to finish. That is to say they don't allow indirect proofs: for example showing that something exists by assuming it doesn't and logically arriving at a contradiction of some sort.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Actually it doesn't tell you anything about consciousness, Ward, but it might tell you plenty about the objective functioning you associate with consciousness.
Au contraire mon frere, discovering that consciousness is entirely associated with the biologic functioning of the physical brain reveals to me-- in a categorical way-- all I need to know generally about consciousness.It is a precept I find 100% useful in my profoundest view of human consciousness.
What it does not reveal to me is the fallacious and frankly contrived notion that objective measurement or the scientific method can reveal only itself exclusively and not anything about the thing being observed. As if any investigation of nature is merely a superimposed investigation of the method , or the measurements, used to arrive at a given truth about something.
This amounts to a new wrinkle in the idea of operationalism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/
In other words, discovering the boiling point of water is 100°C or 212° F at 1 atmosphere of pressure (sea level), we are told is merely about the thermometers ,barometers, the pan used to boil the water,and the heat source-- and not uncovering a central truth revealed about water itself.
Consciousness is no different than water as a subject of study.In fact the brain's operation would be impossible without water. This one fact is more profound than any truth covered or uncovered by meditation states and/ or the theosophist society.
In fact, any activity bereft of direct observation cannot tell us anything about consciousness itself.
I generally agree with that statement. If one were directly observing a mockingbird one would learn little about human consciousness.At least not right away.Lol
unless you have worked through the reasons that subjectivity is not reducible to objective functioning,
Subjectivity is a constituent of the physical universe and therefore ,as we speak, is the subject of the same species of inquiry as the determination of the nature of water-- yes, even subjectivity is impossible without water (and a DC current, among many many other factors-- like quantum tunneling in synaptic neurons and mitochondria and elsewhere)
http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/168/168
It is a hopelessly romantic notion to regard human subjective mental functioning as somehow standing outside the same universe as water and DC currents.
As if subjectivity was the unassailable citadel. The last redoubt.
---------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday while waiting for a train (train station next door to climbing gym) I closed my eyes and faced the sun in an attempt to produce a little Vit. D3. Within a few seconds,with eyes still closed, I noticed a solid deep red field. I initially thought this could be something to do with processing at the red end of visual light. A little research later revealed that what I was actually seeing was the blood in my eyelids. I could have uncovered an excellent self-diagnostic biohacking tool.
This can be seen when the eyes are closed and looking at the back of the eyelids. In a bright room, a dark red can be seen, owing to a small amount of light penetrating the eyelids and taking on the color of the blood it has passed through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination
This experience rivals the very hot 105 degree day, in the same location, when I spat upon the train rails and could hear my spit sizzling a full 10 feet away.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2015 - 11:45pm PT
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Ward, your arguments make sense but they have all long ago been refuted by people in the field. Rather than kick a dead dog, what do you think Neuroscientist Harris means by the statement: Subjectivity is NOT reductive to objective functioning? THis is the point you are not grasping - the why of it all. It is hooked up to your belief that consciousness is the same as water, when Harris and others have done a cogent job of showing that consciousness is qualitatively different than any other phenomenon you can point to as an object, as some thing "out there."
Try it, Ward, try and contrast the qualitative aspects of consciousness with water, a bowling ball, a pear tree, a comet blazing, with Half Dome. Ignoring the qualitative is simply an effort to reduce the phenomenon to - you guessed it, measurements. But at some point, no matter how close the associations we hold subjectivity to the objective, we are no longer looking at the subjective itself, but the objective. Mistaking them for being the same things is to fundamentally misunderstand your very topic of discussion - we can easily se why.
Though the metaphor is not nearly what we want, we ask - can you reduce Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," to the trumpet you believe "created" said tune. WIll a close examination of the trumpet tell you all you need to know about music? Are music and the brass instrument the same things?
What's more, you are arguing for a direct causal explanation for consciousness by way of material antecedents. Two problems: What if the matter you are banking on has no physical extent when reduced far enough - meaning your trumped is begotten by nothing at all. And second, what of the efforts by physicists that suggest (Copenhagen school etc.) observing itself plays a hand in the formation of things?
If you shut up and stop calculating, backtrack and read up on the experts who have tackled these questions, you will find some answers. Harris is a good place to start.
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Subjectivity is NOT reductive to objective functioning?
The dead dog doesn't care. It's subjectivity depended upon physical functioning.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Good morning.
Jgill: If you close your eyes and merely listen to a TV drama you become a more active participant in the narrative construction.
Hmmmm, . . . well, why don’t you just hear sounds, rather than a narrative? It's the narrative that is the content. The sounds are, . . . er, a "quality" that can't be described accurately or fully.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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But did his physical functioning depend on his subjectivity?
What came first, the eyeball or the need/want to see?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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And second, what of the efforts by physicists that suggest (Copenhagen school etc.) observing itself plays a hand in the formation of things?
of course, the physicist who so speculate may be entirely wrong... not that that the physics is wrong, but that the interpretation is wrong...
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle sets up the Copenhagen interpretation's view on this...
we can get into the weeds on the the physics... but please keep in mind that the uncertainty principle depends on the idea of the wave function, and the formal algebraic structure of the theory, in which the operation of defining the position of this wave function, and operation of defining the momentum do not commute.
By commute, of course I mean that if you operate one after the other, the result is the same when you reverse the order.
But what it the wave-function? it is a quantity defined in a space (a Hilbert space) which we have no direct access to. We can only formulate a probability through the calculation of "intensity" which is a measure of the wave-function's "amplitude" in that space...
So already we are on pretty shaky grounds by insisting that this has some correspondence with the physical reality that we perceive...
That is what the interpretations do... allow us to interpret the quantum mechanics in classical mechanical terms. This whole program is fraught, of course, and erroneously applies words shared by the two in an equivalence.
This leads to Largo's exhausting refrain that there is "nothing down there."
Actually, taking the formal quantum mechanical view, those wave functions spread out over all space and time, they are everywhere that there is a "where" to be... That is, Hilbert space is filled, packed solid, with all the stuff in the universe, not a speck of it is "empty" in the sense of Largo's "nothing."
Largo could claim that he escapes this wonky wave-function view by adopting a "particle" view, but since we can show an equivalence between the two views this doesn't get him out of the trouble that our Hilbert space is still "full" of particles, we need only calculate the probability of the particle being somewhere.
Bell helped make a number of issues clear in quantum mechanics. And this clarity informs our modern thinking and explains, to some extent, the foibles of the early thinking. Don't forget, quantum mechanics has been around for more than 100 years, and it's not like physicists haven't been puzzling about it all that time.
In particular, Heisenberg's "microscope" is an example of how the "observer" affects the "observed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle#Heisenberg.27s_microscope
One need only ponder the development of Quantum demolition measurements
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nondemolition_measurement
to see a more nuanced understanding of preparing, manipulating and observing quantum states, beyond the Copenhagen interpretation, which was, after all, developed nearly 90 years ago... and did not have access to the subsequent 90 years of thinking, observing and experimenting...
But more importantly, the physics is not "trapped" by the Copenhagen or any other interpretation of quantum mechanics, the interpretation is not the physics.
No doubt we'll wait for Largo to confer with his "car pool" experts on this... my views being dubiously tagged as "old Dad thinking"
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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what do you think Neuroscientist Harris means by the statement: Subjectivity is NOT reductive to objective functioning?
Well, mon frere d'Largo, maybe you should ask Harris, I have no idea why he would say that or in what context it was said.
It is hooked up to your belief that consciousness is the same as water, when Harris and others have done a cogent job of showing that consciousness is qualitatively different than any other phenomenon you can point to as an object, as some thing "out there."
As a further clarification, I declared that water is the same as consciousness inasmuch as it is a phenomenon that resides in the universe we inhabit and therefore subject to the methodical investigation of nature.
Surely Harris did not say or mean that consciousness is inherently exempt from the probing of science,or any revelations that might ensue from same?
Secondly, my use of water as a comparison to consciousness allowed me to establish not only the above-- but additionally the solid fact that biologic consciousness as well as all its progeny, including subjectivity, would be impossible without water. Moreover,if there be any substance qualitatively different in some very fundamental ways then that substance is water.
If you remove water you remove all traces of consciousness along with subjectivity. Why is this so? If consciousness is so unlike water as a phenomenon "out there"?
When you look at consciousness do you automatically omit the "out theres"? Do you negate the proteins,fat, neurons, the DC current?
What kind of consciousness do you get after you have cleansed it of all objective determinants?
But at some point, no matter how close the associations we hold subjectivity to the objective, we are no longer looking at the subjective itself, but the objective. Mistaking them for being the same things is to fundamentally misunderstand your very topic of discussion - we can easily se why.
Up to this stage what has defined consciousness in a way that clearly points to its fundamental nature? Is it the cultural or individually-determined products of consciousness?
Answer: yes.But what underlies even that? When we peel back the layers of culture where do we ultimately arrive?
We arrive at objectively determined factors. Evolution, proteins,fats,water,sunlight,electrons,etc.
If it is a mistake to associate consciousness and subjectivity with those things then what things should I associate them with?
And if I am forbidden to associate them with anything, or nothing, how can I really know anything about them--especially as they relate to other things.
How can human subjectivity be inherently exempt from objective study when its very indispensable antecedent constituents, active for billions of years, have been determined by same?
I'll wager you this: let us agree beforehand that death is the cessation of consciousness. Let us further stipulate that something removed from consciousness which results in the cessation of same is therefore essentially and intimately associated with consciousness/subjectivity.
I'll go first. I remove water.
Okay,pretend I put water back and everything returns to life.
Your turn.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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It's interesting, the comments by Ed about this particular Hilbert space extending everywhere, yet it is in a sense an abstraction conjured up by mathematicians long ago as they toyed with ways to extend the notion of the common 2-D or 3-D vector. From the minds of mathematicians and theoretical physicists - pretty darn subjective - to concrete applications like your microwave oven.
What's more, you are arguing for a direct causal explanation for consciousness by way of material antecedents. Two problems: What if the matter you are banking on has no physical extent when reduced far enough - meaning your trumped is begotten by nothing at all. And second, what of the efforts by physicists that suggest (Copenhagen school etc.) observing itself plays a hand in the formation of things? (JL)
Once again, no legitimate counter-argument from the Wizard: What if . . .
No physical extent = woo is real and reflects the physical world. Metaphysical ectoplasm.
;>|
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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'The Lost Dreamer'
I dreamed the dream was real,
The dream became my reality,
I dreamed there was a dreamer,
And the dreamer dreamed a dream,
Then he dreamed that he was real,
He dreamed his dream was real,
His dream became his reality,
When he awoke his dream was gone,
His dream reality was lost within his dream,
When I awoke my dream was gone,
It was lost along with the dreamer,
The idea of the dreamer lost among my lost dreams frightened me,
And I waited for the dreamer who had dreamed me,
To wake and lose the dreamer who was I.
-bushman
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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What if the matter you are banking on has no physical extent when reduced far enough - meaning your trumped is begotten by nothing at all.
Man, really, really, seriously stuck on that little confabulation, huh?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Yeah well i see theories from the bible like, "God knows ALL" a little easier to grasp when I hear scientist say a photon on this side of the planet "knows"what a photon on the other side is doing. Or that a glass of water, or any body of water acts as one thing/unit.
And QM, well maybe that is love...
It's been Prophesized for a few Millennium that the Universe is One.
Edit: sorry JGill wrong thread
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Largo: ...any activity bereft of direct observation cannot tell us anything about consciousness itself
Neither apparently can 7500 posts. So far you've been able to tell us next to nothing about consciousness from all your direct observations beyond your belief in a metaphysical duality.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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healyje: So far you've been able to tell us next to nothing about consciousness from all your direct observations beyond your belief in a metaphysical duality.
I don’t think you’ve been listening very closely and you don't understand what’s been said. Every area of discipline is like that for those not in it.
You’ve been telling many of us about beliefs that you hold true, too.
There is a difference between direct experience and constructs.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Let's see, many pages ago there was an illuminating discussion about the difference between consciousness and awareness, with science references. Then we learned that there is a particular state of mind achieved by years of Zen sitting that displays raw awareness or awareness without object. Next free will exists in some form for practical purposes, but that may be illusory as we are all governed by physical laws. We've talked about theories of the cosmos, like the mathematical universe and the multiverse. Much metaphysics has been advanced by the sitters, especially the notion that no physical extent in some weird way may be a bridge between inner mind and outer reality . . . thanks to the Wizard and his estimable Car Pool.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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There is a difference between direct experience and constructs.
I am guessing that by direct experience you mean that there is a direct path between some event and you, with no intermediate modification. From my perspective as a student of nervous systems, I don't see how that would happen.
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WBraun
climber
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Direct experience is when the soul is linked up with God.
In the material world the soul thinks its the body.
This the root cause of all misery ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Direct experience is when the soul is linked up with God.
This should only be done by the maker. He knows the schematic and where to put the jumper.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 8, 2015 - 09:07am PT
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Ed, you flatter me (I know you hate the idea of being represented as flattering anyone but a quantifier) by attributing no-thing to "Largo."
You also flub it - imo - by looking at any of this in absolute terms. Meaning one (form or emptiness) exist all by their lonesome independent from the other.
Remember, the maxim is: Emptiness if form and form is emptiness. Exactly.
Ward, I'm in Zurich with no time. I'll address your stuff later. If you want to get clean on the non-reductive aspects of consciousness, just look at a few of Harris' videos. For a neuroscientist he is very clear and easy to understand. I suspect the part where you are getting hung up on is the simple fact that when you go to measuring, you can only measure an object, a thing, an output, and since consciousness ITSELF (NOT the object you feel produces it) is a subjective experience, measurements can only be inferred by way of a subject's self observation of the closed field (sentience). There is no such thing as a third person directly measuring another person's consciousness itself, since consciousness can never itself be an object - but a brain can so have at it.
JL
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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MH2: I am guessing that by direct experience you mean that there is a direct path between some event and you, with no intermediate modification. From my perspective as a student of nervous systems, I don't see how that would happen.
Direct experience is experience without content . . . that’s all (another double entendre).
I’d say the Duck is dead-on.
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