IDEAS: MIND AND METAPHYSICS

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CONTENTS

Philosophy: Consciousness: Thought: Computation - Who thinks?

Philosophy. Psychology. Consciousness. Persons, Brains and Machines. May 28, 1998

Philosophy: Consciousness: Thought: Computation - Who thinks?

Human-body interaction where is thought?

Much, but not all, higher level processing is in the brain

Much, but not all lower, level processing is in the body

Brain-mind-body evolves from and in our, “world” environment; such evolutionary adaptation includes an ability to learn and to adapt

Human-tool: who is the actor, who works or who does?

The question is similar to the question about thought

Human-computer: who thinks? This is a similar question

You can guess where I am going with these questions especially if you are familiar with my thoughts on distributed thinking and consciousness

Thought is everywhere but focused first in the body and secondly and more intensely and reflexively [representation, brain-body image…]

Human-tool and human-computer are particular cases of organism-environment

My functional and evolutionary logic is in other writing

Analytically and realistically we know and see this but when we go to think in other fields we forget our true knowledge and fall back on the prejudices of our particular organism-environment even in our searches beyond those realms. But to do that is inhuman since to be human is [includes] to be adapted to adaptation to not-encountered realms through the medium of thought

What are the implications of these reflections for the question of the location of consciousness and its identity with thought?

Philosophy. Psychology. Consciousness. Persons, Brains and Machines. May 28, 1998

1. An important distinction between brains and machines relates to our understanding of them

2. In conception, design and building a machine has a definite boundary, a definite set of functions, is made up of defined and known components which have definite and known properties and the properties of the whole is built up out of the properties of the parts. In the real world the known properties are approximations to actual properties, and the actual object may have properties that are not part of the design properties or are unknown. Conceptually and by experimenting and testing the effects of the non-design properties are eliminated

3. The situation with natural objects - living organisms, brains, persons…- is different. The defined boundaries only approximate to “essential” ones…where does brain end and person begin? The defined components - brain cells…have defined properties that we assume to result in the defined properties of the brain. And, indeed, some actual brain operation is explained by defined properties of components. But we do not know this to be true of all function of brain and person

4. So when we talk of replacing brain cells by silicon chips we are talking about replacing the known or identified or defined properties of cells by those of chips. But we do not know that the defined properties of cells produce all functions of brain or person - especially the deep ones such as thought or consciousness - even if “cells” produce “brains. “ Therefore it is spurious to assert that such a replacement will result in a conscious machine

5. Of course that may happen but we cannot say that it will happen until we know or have an explanation of higher level brain properties in terms of lower level neural function. Even then we cannot say that it will happen due to extraneous properties of chips or other mechanical components. That happening will still be open to its actualization in an actual construction

6. I am not at all arguing against the possibility of conscious or thinking machines - which I regard as interesting and exciting possibilities. I am arguing that we do not know whether they will be built by humans and how they may be built by humans. One of the reasons I say we do not know… in addition to those given or implied above is due to the distinctions between designed, built, actual and evolved objects. I am not arguing that these distinctions are absolute but that we do not know the final nature of the distinctions. We are truly and really parts of the universe as much as anything else and that includes our artificiality, our designs, our minds, our creations, and our technologies. It is our ignorance of what will and may happen combined with the possibilities that makes the enterprise exciting and important

7. A major point to the gedanken designs of conscious machines is the implications for artificial and natural intelligences and consciousnesses. The main point to this discussion is that we know less about the realizability of the gedanken designs and therefore less about the implications…as may be implied by the work of such persons as David Chalmers. It still remains true that the thought designs are interesting in themselves, as possibilities in artificial intelligence and as instruments to explore consciousness and its nature

8. What are the implications of the conclusion that we do not know whether we will be able to construct brains from “silicon chips?”

Not, as stated in 6 above, that machine consciousness is not possible - as Searle says, brains are machines

If brains other than life forms are possible, fabrication may be insufficient and evolution may be necessary

What are the elements of a conscious entity, and what are the bio-physical or other properties involved, and whether we can construct such entities are all open questions

Questions as to the nature of consciousness remain open. The starting point, of course, is that consciousness is the having of subjective experience, it is qualia, it is a certain something that it is like to be. . . But, in questions of the farther reaches of consciousness - what is the relation of my consciousness to the rest of my mind, of my mind to my body, of consciousness to the universe, what entities are consciousness, what would it take for a machine to think or to be conscious, how pervasive is consciousness…, we need another specification of consciousness - one that will permit the relations of consciousness to become more evident yet will not invalidate our ordinary, day-to-day ideas and intuitions about consciousness. Rather, any new specification of consciousness will: show up the ordinary view as a special case or example, will show how it relates to the other elements of mind - awareness, intentionality, awareness of awareness, will show gradations and degrees, and will point to understanding these and related elements in their proper and transparent light

More on Silicon Brains. October 1, 1998

Some difficulties with the concept of an equivalent silicon chip

We do not know all the parameters of a neuron and its states and processes. How would we know this? It would require a complete knowledge of brain/mind processes…and ability to predict the latter from the properties of a neuron. We do not yet truly know whether this is or will be possible. This is an essential present difficulty in that we do not know a way around it and we do not know whether there will be a way around it

A related practical difficulty. I use practical to mean that I do not claim that the difficulty is essential. Cells multiply, grow, differentiate, die; connections and their transmitter, modulator and channel properties change…and these processes are part of learning and brain growth and we do not know whether silicon chips can duplicate these. We should consider: processes from conception, first development of the neural plate. To what extent are these processes an essential part of the brain processes over and above the signaling that goes on with brain as a static structure. Does every signaling event modify brain?

What about the physical properties of brains…concussions…vibrations…tumors…?

Brain fields…nutrient and transmitter gradients…how essential - relative to mental processing - are these as a part of brain function

The eyes. To what extent must they be considered an essential part of the brain?

Another practical difficulty. Silicon chips have properties that are different from their design parameters

The concept of an equivalent brain

Instead of replacing neurons by chips in the classic experiment, let’s try replacing neurons by neurons, one by one. Replacement all at once might not work as well because the brain might be locked into a pattern or mode that is an essential part of the brain state

How do we know the neurons are equivalent? Classical parameters cannot be known precisely. What about quantum mechanical parameters? If building units are molecules? Does uncertainty limit knowledge even in this case?

Now begin to replace neurons by neurons. Each neuron is replaced by a replica that is at best a shade away from its original specification. Though there may no noticeable effect initially, there may be insidious, cumulative and interactive effects

Typically, small changes can be amplified in:

Linear, unstable systems - epilepsy, genius? Nonlinear systems [e.g. branch switching.]…and Chaotic systems…with fine grained switching…where arbitrarily small differences can be amplified to functional levels

Replacement of neurons by “equivalent” chips

Has all the problems above [i] the questions of equivalence, [ii] the issues of replacement, [iii] the questions of measurement…can a chip be identical to its specification?

Philosophy. Consciousness. Experience and the Real. June 5, 1998

1. Are there distinctions:

Experience	Reality
Idea	Matter
The subjective	The objective
First person	Second and third persons

In other words is not the object just the idea minus the qualia

2. Problems with the idea of no distinction:

Mind.Idea	vs.	Matter
The subjective “I”	vs.	The objective many “they” who all have a distinct “I”
Single mind	vs.	Many minds

That is, how is 1^st person = 3^rd person possible without solipsism?

3. Resolutions

Am I not trying to go beyond local perspective to perspectival invariance…Beyond many minds split to one integrated, integrative mind…and beyond the subject-object split to unity?

Philosophy. Consciousness. Social Construction. Consciousness as Awareness of Awareness. June 16, 1998

I don’t think consciousness is socially constructed in a direct or primary sense

The primary effect of society, language, culture, tradition, and writing [or collective memory] is to make for good communication and a shared historically cumulative memory about consciousness and so make for self-consciousness. One way this happens is through the various learned ways and modes of consciousness that are learned and shared and not so private even though personal…and another way is by clarifying the distinction - whether in fact or in phenomenal awareness - between the putatively different consciousnesses of distinct individuals. That is the primary effect

However there may also be secondary effects. The primary enhancements of consciousness can interact with other factors on personal and immediate scales and also on trans-personal and evolutionary scales. The interactions in the personal dimension on awareness, in the cultural dimension on the cultivation of consciousness and in evolutionary dimensions on individual or species potential for depth, degree, dimensionality and variety of consciousness result in heightened consciousness, brighter distinctions in the field of awareness, acuity, dimensionality and modality, variegated aspects and cultivation. The loop is one that feeds back on itself as it moves forward

Along these lines I might argue that interactions described above enhance awareness of awareness and so perhaps a tendency to think of consciousness as consciousness of consciousness. This may argue against my earlier tentative if forceful stance that consciousness is consciousness of consciousness

However the two positions are not necessarily contradictory since the earlier position involved an enhanced definition of consciousness - a definition that went beyond the ostensive one of consciousness as [human] experience

Philosophy. Consciousness. On the Problems of Consciousness. June 16, 1998

There is a problem - this problem - of consciousness that I have been calling the fundamental problem of consciousness. David Chalmers calls it the hard problem of consciousness and John Searle calls it the most important problem of modern biology. It is the problem of how conscious experience could arise at all from matter which, after all is not supposed to feel pains, have conscious thoughts, or experience the beauty of love or of a sunset

The problem is that matter does not have subjective experience. According to science and the dominant paradigm matter is all. Vitalism as an essence was banished from biology. We know how life arose - we know about the origins of life in physical terms, in its chemical and proto-cellular substrates, and in evolution. We ought to know how mind arises

What is being asked when we ask for an explanation of the subjective experience that we call consciousness in terms of matter? We are not asking just for an explanation of the fact of consciousness. In principle we ought to be able to explain conscious behavior. That of course is a project in itself and its final success may require some new concepts - and intrinsic specifications - of both mind or consciousness and matter. But we are asking more than that. In asking the fundamental question we are asking for a demonstration that matter, which in all its scientific descriptions does not have its own experiences, can give rise to subjective experience - my subjective experience

Why is it a problem at all? Is it a problem for an infant, for a tribesman, at the warfront? Why was it not so significant earlier in scientific history? That is a complex issue but one aspect is the neo-Cartesian split required not by the arguments of Descartes himself, but by the sheer enormity of the success of the material paradigm of science

Thus I think that the problem has two sources. The first is the one just stated, the success of the material paradigm. The second is the lack of mental agency in matter. Or, perhaps more accurately, the lack of any recognized mental agency in matter

I believe that mental agency will be reintroduced - but not necessarily in any immediate or obvious way. It will be introduced in a way that allows the inference of subjective mental agency. Second, exploration of experience itself will deepen, sharpen, broaden and refine our catalogs and logic of experience. The meeting ground will be somewhere in the territory between the two continents

Thus, I believe that the fundamental problem of consciousness is a cultural artifact - or has some dimensions of artifactuality

However the fundamental problem is probably not completely artifactual for it is clearly related to The Mystery of Consciousness. Here is a quote from § 10. 4. 3 Reformulation or Reorganization of the Problems of my essay Reflections on Metaphysics and the Problems of Consciousness. Here is an extract:

The first problem area will be a new one on the “mystery of consciousness. “ This is not the same as Searle’s “mystery. “ I am in agreement with Searle [1] that what he begins by labeling a mystery is really a problem…it is the problem of “explaining exactly how neurobiological processes in the brain cause our subjective states. “ What I call the “mystery” is truly a mystery…not in the sense that it is ultimately unfathomable but because it is, for me and for many others, an enduring source of wonder, awe and enjoyment. This mystery is the one of my being and my awareness or consciousness of my being. My personal memory goes back to a certain point - when I was two or three - and no further. My consciousness, my being was - as far as I know - once not. Now it is. This is the mystery. It can be seen also as a problem but it is also a personal mystery. And it is worthwhile including in philosophical considerations not only as a mystery, which keeps us fresh with wonder and curiosity, but also as a problem that encompasses Searle’s fundamental biological problem of consciousness. As a problem it relates, of course to the genetic and ultimate problems identified in my essay

Existence. Philosophy. Mind. Mindscape. Consciousness. Study

Studying Mind. Regardless of the status of reports of reflection we can accept [1] the reports as data, [2] combine the information with all reports and self-data, [3] analyze and see the results, [4] do all this with others and cumulatively

Part of doing with others will bring on disagreement. This is part of dialectic and dialog. Those disagreeing with us find us disagreeing with them. We remain open. We remain open to those who disagree. We remain open that those who disagree may have points. We remain open that those who disagree - and those who agree - may be irrational, refractory, anti-reasonable, self-aggrandizing

Because our society - as do others - has “cultural blinders” there will tend to be limits on what self mind-study reveals in terms of modes of study, modes of revelation and revealed content, and in terms of interpretation. However, we remain open to possibility and discussion that these tendencies to limits may be overcome and this follows not only from some abstract principle of openness but also because our principles of criticism are also subject to the tendency of limitation due to culture

I there can be a hermeneutics of texts then why not also something similar for mind reports. For example, once a report is made it becomes textual at least in the sense of shared memory

Hermeneutics - and these ideas can be applied to the points just made - may be interpreted as:

1. The interpretation of texts, especially of “old” or “ancient” texts

2. More generally as regarding a text as an object of the world with no particular relation to its original author. In this sense the text is an object which may interact with individuals and meaning result. The universe is then the join of the universe and the universe of individuals and texts. Of course it is not necessary to specify the texts and the individuals - they are always implicitly present - the mention is for emphasis. This, of course, is always present for that is how people react to books - their own meanings abound along with possible search for the authors’ original intentions

Philosophy. Metaphysics. Psychology and Power. Consciousness. June 29, 1998

1. There is no ontological difference between idealism and materialism except - in the linguistic and social context - power relations and other psycho-social weights

2. Consider - as illustrative of the point to be made - I say:

A: Consciousness is of evolutionary advantage because it enables one to stand back and do second order reflection that is reflection about reflection and therefore improve reflection

B: That is anthropological because it universalizes a particular human form of consciousness

A: That’s anthropological because [by assuming that it is an universalization] it assumes that only the human form of consciousness of consciousness is consciousness of consciousness…and there is a basic form of consciousness of consciousness that is consciousness by nature

In other words consciousness and awareness are both reflexive [reflexivity means that consciousness is consciousness of consciousness] and essentially the same with different degrees of reflexivity and form and heightening of the primary and secondary aspects but the fact of reflexivity is inescapable due to the very subjectivity of consciousness and not merely because of my earlier arguments from perspective as given in Reflections on Metaphysics and the Problems of Consciousness

Conclusion

Knowing is not the same as consciousness: as a human I know that I am conscious…but animal and other being is aware - and knows - but the form is different

Linguistic expression, knowledge of, and the social traditions of consciousness…are not bases of consciousness even though they enhance consciousness. That makes them look and feel as though they are the source of the reflexivity. And, as a result it makes reflexivity suspect as necessary [and sufficient] for consciousness. But they are not the source even though they enhance and heighten consciousness and reflexivity. The source of reflexivity, as stated above, is consciousness

A View of the Fundamental Problems of Consciousness and of Metaphysics

Reconciling the different, perhaps reified, modes of knowledge…the subjective or ideal and the objective…

This is also the fundamental problem of metaphysics, in which knowledge is generalized to all being

Philosophy. Mind. Consciousness. How to get a machine, a computer to think! June 30, 1998

Design and fabrication. A special case of this is programming

Evolution

Transference from known agents of thought and consciousness to machine. This could be by design and overt or could come about as a result of designer investment

Once the machine can think or simulate thinking or have consciousness, it can enter these processes as an agent in the case of thinking or consciousness or as a quasi-agent in the case of simulated thinking

Combinations and synergies of the above

Philosophy. Mind. Consciousness. How to recognize consciousness and thinking! June 30, 1998

Similarity principles: comparison, analogy, empathy…Empathy includes the way you or I know that we are both conscious and we both think without having to analyze or evaluate in any overt way

Dissimilarity principles: openness - we recognize that our mode and manifestation of consciousness may be only one or three modes…function or signs are abstracted from the known

Conceptual principles: The similarity and dissimilarity principles are perceptual. The idea of using functions and signs is perceptual when done implicitly, but becomes conceptual when the functions and signs are explicitly listed and evaluated in their validity, importance and relations. More generally, the conceptual elucidation of consciousness, mind and thought and their relations is, to a large degree what my interest in the field has focused on and, to significant degree is what consciousness studies and related AI studies and philosophy of mind focuses on. When these kinds of study are brought to bear on the question or recognition of consciousness, conceptual principles are being employed

Mind. Consciousness. Maps and Atlases

Not necessarily single-dimensional

Mind. Consciousness. Philosophy…background assumptions that make discourse possible, significant…

Common paradigmatic assumptions of science and humanities

Assumptions as to the nature, existence and pervasion of meaning

That idealist metaphysics, even non-solipsistic ones, entail fewer premises than materialist ones, that idealism and realism are consistent, that matter is or can be a derived percept-concept within idealism

Explaining consciousness - some points. May 27, 1999

Materialism - in materialism/third person accounts the explanation of consciousness is “as if”

Idealism does not need to explain consciousness - unless it is a type of idealism that regards as unconscious “ideas” as the fundamental form of ideas. The task of idealism is to explain the world

I have shown that idealism is the framework for the “as if” mode in materialism

Thus if the “as if” mode is sufficiently faithful, all that is need to get consciousness from matter is a flip from the “as if” to the real and the corresponding flip for “matter” should follow

But the gap between an actual and faithful “as if” explanation will be bridged by evolution of concepts of matter

At the same time there is an evolution in our idea of the “idea”

…and in the end, as stated above, after suitable and sufficient evolution of concepts of matter and idea, the gap may be bridged by a simple transition from “it” to “I” language

These comments constitute an approach and a meta-approach

We refer those who object to understanding by increment and evolution to evolution itself; and to the evolution of ideas, particularly of science e.g. electromagnetism - the unification of electricity and magnetism in Maxwell’s equations

We may refer to three modes of consciousness: phenomenal, as if and access consciousness. Are these distinct modes or complementary descriptions?

The Unconscious. June 27, 1999

Time and the unconscious: an example

Sometimes, on waking - after a few hours of sleep, I have been consistently able to tell the time within three minutes

It is hard for me to be on time. If I put a clock 15 minutes ahead, I soon compensate - at first I am aware of the compensation and then it is automatic. So I put all the clocks in my house varying degrees of time ahead. I did not pay attention to the precise alteration of the individual clocks. If the power would fail I would not reset in the previous pattern - even if I knew it. I was thus able to get to work on time. I began to find that whereas, previously, I would know the precise times according to the individual clocks, I now developed a resistance to knowing the individual times. Thus I could not subconsciously adjust to the settings. I had unconsciously programmed myself to value getting to work on time. Next step: set all the clocks to correct time

The influence of my mother on my love of nature

My mother modeled the love of beautiful things, especially nature. We would share this. Of course, the influence was not overt and the result have been, in some part, a switch of some internal factor - my brother seems to be unlike me in this regard

My mother died a few months ago. I missed her, of course… she taught me how to enjoy the world - we would enjoy this…we would read poetry to each other during intercontinental phone calls… and this would cause my brother to shake his head in jest. About a month after she died I began to notice that the times that I missed her were when I enjoyed something that we used to share. Most often this would be when I would have a lovely experience seeing something beautiful in nature. I would feel the loss and for a moment the enjoyment would cease. I would think of my mother in appreciation. I would remind myself that she would want me to enjoy my experience of being in the world. My enjoyment might be the continuation, in some way, of her enjoyment. I was re-educating myself. I wondered what would be the final result

Nature of Consciousness…brief comments on status of research

The meaning of consciousness that I use here is what is the most basic and elementary one. Suppose I see a red ball. I have the inner, subjective experience of seeing the ball as red. That subjective experience is an example of consciousness, of a conscious state

There are a number of other meanings that refer, for the most part, to some higher function that includes or is related to consciousness in the sense just given. Examples are conscience, self-consciousness, cognition. Unless I specify otherwise this is the meaning I have in mind when I use the word “consciousness” in what follows

The meaning used here is basic to these various other meanings. It is very closely tied in to what it is to have a mental life and is, if not the defining aspect of what it is to have mental processes, the central phenomenon of mind. As such the topic deserves serious study. Yet, in behaviorist psychology from the early 1900s, it was considered irrelevant to the study of human behavior. Behavior alone was supposed to be the proper object of study in psychology. The dominant view in Anglo-American [and Australian and Scandinavian] philosophy of the same period was a materialism in which mind and consciousness was regarded as unimportant - an epiphenomenon - and/or rejected as a fundamental part of the world. In the latter case what would otherwise be labeled mind was reduced in one way or other to matter or material relations - or eliminated altogether. A more recent approach to eliminating mind has been to naturalize intentionality, i.e. to reduce it to non-mental phenomena and to say that what is left over - consciousness - is unimportant

Under the burdens of [1] the contradictions of rejecting or trivializing mind, [2] a serious body of thought in philosophy devoted to demonstrating the irreducible nature of consciousness, [3] the contradiction of common sense, [4] the need to understand what is at least a central human phenomenon…and due to the successes of neuro-biology, psychology and philosophy in at least beginning to explain mental phenomena including consciousness, consciousness is since the 1970s a proper topic in Anglo-American academic research. Resistance to this research includes those who continue to espouse materialism and those who say that it will is not and will not be productive - that the human mind cannot understand itself. This new movement, proliferated in the 1990s, uses essentially the present meaning of consciousness

Consciousness, awareness and consciousness of consciousness

In the meaning being used here a state of consciousness need not include being conscious of the consciousness. However, here is a line of thought in which consciousness necessarily involves consciousness of consciousness. This view needs to be considered even though John Searle and others reject it

Why would one assert, seemingly against common sense, that consciousness necessarily involves awareness or consciousness of the consciousness? The proto-arguments are [1] consciousness, like stimulus-response, involves a relation between the conscious being and the world…and [2] does not the sensation of consciousness essentially involve consciousness of the fact?

Is consciousness identical to awareness? I tend to that point of view even though it seems that there can be unconscious awareness

The following considerations are pertinent

Where in the continuum called the “chain of being” is the origin of consciousness. If consciousness is not universally present then it must be inserted as a new category or it must be a form, property or feature of matter

The discussion of consciousness as a relation or as having content is closely related to the terms “I”, “you”, “internal”, external”… What is the role of the selection and reification of concepts in defining the terms of the discussion?

The Unconscious - some ideas

Distant memory

Repressed consciousness

Seen but not recognized

Pre-communication or pre-language

Phylogenetic

The form of awareness or consciousness

A metaphor for a mode or form of consciousness

Unconscious as dim, vague, boundary conscious…in contrast to bright, clear, and the focus of attention

The body’s own experience

The intrinsic content of art

The condition of knowledge - Transcendental Method…the argument from experience to its necessary presuppositions

The condition of language

Non-conscious processing

Latent consciousness

Dimensions of cognition and feeling

Universal consciousness

Window into reality, the whole being and the whole universe

The Unconscious: some details

On the seen but not recognized

A trivial point: “seen” is not restricted to sight or even to sensation or perception

There is nothing in the unconscious which is absolutely inaccessible to consciousness

Seen but not recognized because:

Does not connect with every-day experience

Not among the normal modes of subject-object

Fostered by the delusions and illusions of culture…not among the normally accepted and approved instruments of perception

Related to the conditions of existence and survival

Lack of education

Pre-linguistic

…this list is related to the list in topic 3 above

The omitted instruments of “perception” include the organs and languages of

Poetry

The esoteric and the mystic

Research and exploration

Body, family, race…being and existence

The fluidity of personality…in contrast to the encouraged and approved model of defined and definite personality

Examples of unconscious processing

Becoming aware of the fact and content of what someone said a few seconds after the fact

Driving to town one day a word flashed into my mind without any conscious association or reason. A few seconds later I recognized that the word was the solution to a puzzle that I had not been able to solve earlier. I had set the puzzle aside and had not been consciously thinking about it for a while when the word flashed into my awareness

Explains why we do not always follow our explicit intentions

Explaining mind and consciousness

In terms of a material substrate. Consciousness as a feature of matter. Includes the question of the location of mental processing, conscious experience, unconscious processing…in the material paradigm explanations can be in terms of “constituents” [atomism…] and/or “origins” [evolution…]

Consciousness as fundamental and not “needing” explanation. Idealism as the real realism. Unity of consciousness and, perhaps of being - the universe, through the unconsciousness--through the seen but not recognized…

Idealism, the problem of solipsism…resolution

Idealism is attractive because it sees the world as grades of idea. This requires reconceptualization of the idea of consciousness or the idea. In this view, the existence of perceptual organs is not a contradiction of idealism

This approach to idealism appears to imply that my personal phenomenology is the phenomenology. This seeming solipsism is unattractive. Russell finds solipsism to contain self-contradictions

The resolution: the one consciousness, my consciousness, even though I apprehend others, is, in reality, along with all the truly existent others, all part of the same one manifest and manifested as the great one. Proof begins with the observation that my own apparently unitary is an ordinary multiplicity

Is the question of other minds an issue? Is experience private and empirical?

Mind and matter

Description, metaphor and dynamics of mental phenomena: phenomenology, modes of description and causation

Modes of description include the common, science, philosophy, primal, myth

Map and field of mind and consciousness

Mind and matter

Atomism, neurology

Evolution

Evolution of the percept-concept system. Adaptation. The work of Karl Popper, Donald Campbell…

Spirit

What does this mean?

Requires a notion of the everyday and the ordinary…

Dreams

What are dreams? Neuro-physiologically, and psychologically in terms of other mental phenomena and processes. Neural spark, recombination, association

What are the characteristics of dream images, processes and states? Similarities and dissimilarities between waking and dream consciousness…and various altered states of consciousness including the consciousness of schizophrenics and in other “disorders”. Why are dream states relatively context free?

Modes of association…cognitive-cognitive, cognitive-affective, conscious-unconscious…

Do dreams have a function…for the individual, the group…if so what are the functions?

What is the meaning and significance of dreams? Why should analysis be necessary to reveal meaning? What are the terms, Freudian, mythic, primal and otherwise of analysis

Nature of meaning in dreams

Meaning of dreams vs. the effect, and influence of dreams…by their effect on waking mood, ambience and categories for consciousness not only in conscious use but also through unconsciousness or non-conscious factors…dreams and waking consciousness…effect of waking consciousness and its contents on dreams and dream consciousness

Relation between dream and waking states. Borderline between wake and sleep: hypnagogic [wake ® sleep] and hypnopompic visions and events. Hypnagogic and hypnopompic events and dreams are not usually considered to be psychotic events - functionally, clinically this is probably acceptable but what is the conceptual bases. Logging and review. Content, form, effect, pattern

Random signals and dreams. Association and recombination

Evolutionary origin of dreams and dreaming. Possible lack of distinction in early evolution between dream and waking consciousness. Dreams, consciousness, hallucinations…and the unconscious. Just as conscious processing is not only in and of itself but is also a part of a loop: action--thought--action--thought…so is dream processing also part of an action loop

Why are muscles paralyzed in dream/REM sleep but not in deep sleep?

Stimulant to dreams: messages and affirmation; diet, life-style, drugs

What are the internal sources of dreams, what is their organic “seat?”

Interpretation in dreams

The question is not about interpretation of dreams…but, what is the role of interpretation during and after dreams. It is not as though interpretation is something that we do late in history, but interpretation is a natural part of dreaming and of the influence of dreams on waking states

Examples can be simple. On May 31, 1994 part way between wake and sleep [hypnopompic] I “saw” vague images: clothed arms, legs, torso of an indefinite female figure that transformed into a definite female figure which I interpreted as someone I knew. What are the roles and relative boundaries between transformation [dream processing] and interpretation?

Animal consciousness

Describe it

Facts vs. events…

Now = eternity

Here = universe

Empirical and uninformed by universalized concepts

Since animal concepts are not universalized from particulars…they are universal

Map of animal mind. Reasons why animal mentality, consciousness and intelligence are minimized. Reasons to study these features: relationship and centering; and, by continuity, understanding of human mind and processing

Primal consciousness

Primal consciousness has numerous meanings: the original, universal consciousness…consciousness that is undistorted in illusion…consciousness in nature

Also means consciousness of humans living in closer contact with the conditions of their existence…who, individually, compass the entire set of conditions

Consciousness and death

Map of mind and consciousness

Map

Degrees, levels and modes of consciousness, awareness…

Sensations, perceptions, conceptions, thought…cognition. Language and conceptual thinking. Cognition, emotion and motivation. Emotion as perception. Holistic “maps.” Non-western maps…

Eidetic processing and vision

Personality. Object relations and natural roles and relations such as “leadership.” Object relations as the perception-matrix of self-other relations

Not necessary to accept every feature at every level that has been posited or that occurs as one that will be in the map…or is real

Form and content

Different cultures and paradigms

Structuralism - the task of psychology is the description of consciousness; this is usually atomistic but may be configurational as in Gestalt psychology. Functionalism - a protest against structuralism - mental processes are functions of the biological organism in its adaptation to the environment. Synthesis through the unconscious - which includes awareness of the body and so, integrates at a proximate level; and at the ultimate level through causation including adaptation, radiation…

Categories, relations and analogies within the map. Examples from mental disorders - somatic psychoses delusions and hallucinations

Dynamics

Disorder is an alteration in normal processing?

Knowledge as a functional category - related to action and adaptation, vs. knowledge as a psychological-relational category - epistemology, representation, criteria, exactness…

The sense of reality as congruence among the phases of experience

The Real Problem of Consciousness

As of 2000, the literature reveals two problems. The first is what I call the fundamental or philosophical problem - account for the subjectivity of consciousness given that the brain is matter and, in the most fundamental descriptions -atomic and particle theory, chemistry, neurobiology- there is no reference to anything mental, conscious or subjective. In the literature this has been called the hard problem - hard because of the conceptual or categorial gap. The second is what I call the scientific problem - explaining the variety and dynamics of consciousness based on the brain and related organs, their evolutionary history, structure and microstructure. This has been called the easy problem - easy in a conceptual sense though not technically easy

Not everyone thinks there are two problems. Some think that the hard problem is a non-problem; others think that breaking down the scientific problem into sub-problems [consciousness to perception and thought, perception to vision etc., vision to…] and cumulatively solving the detailed problems will resolve the hard, conceptual problem. But there are others who think that the hard problem is a real problem and, indeed, hard in the sense stated here; and there are yet others who think that the hard problem is insoluble - at least refractory to human intelligence

What is the real problem?

I want to throw a wrench into the machinery of the two problem idea. It is that the problems of consciousness are an artifact of culture. Precisely, I want to suggest that the problems have an artifactual nature. I want to elaborate this idea a little, open it up to debate and allow resolution through dialog. There is a trivial sense in which the “hard” problem is an artifact of culture: it is due to our commitment to scientific explanation. This goes beyond issues of the explanatory gap between mind and matter: there is a definite gap among the scientific modes of explanation regardless of whether the scientific categories are ultimate. However, if the scientific categories are real, then this artifactuality disappears. Another related sense of artifactuality is due to the Cartesian split. It is usual to describe this split as the dualism that arises when we talk of realms of mind and matter. The split may be viewed in another way: within awareness we find perception, thought and action; we find that action has limits and therefore experience self / non-self; introduction of mind as an independent agency into this scheme is problematic. In this way, the real problem is that of experiencing and describing the world; scientific / theoretical explanation is the description [include mathematical description] of patterns

The real problems, as I see them, follow

First: The issue of fundamental categories. Mind, matter; or mind, matter and a third category which may be an extension of the concept of mind or matter; or being that comes before the split into perceiver and perceived…

Second: The question of the nature of consciousness. I do not think that, in the here-and-now, the question “what is consciousness?” is very important. It is true that the word “consciousness” has been used in a number of more and less loosely related senses. There is, among these, one core meaning that is central to the current debate - it is the one of subjectivity; there is, in fact, in the literature, essential agreement on this point. [This does not mean that nuances of this meaning are unimportant; and it does not mean that considering different families of meaning to the one word “consciousness” are irrelevant.] There is one point that should be addressed. The following distinction has been made: phenomenal consciousness as subjective consciousness [the meaning used here] and access consciousness as a measure of when consciousness is really indicative of awareness of an object or possibility for action upon an object. I have addressed this distinction elsewhere and find it to be empty. Consciousness, in its meaning as central to the modern debate, is phenomenal consciousness; access consciousness is an indicator of consciousness [possibly necessary and sufficient] but is not consciousness itself

In the long term, though, I think that questions of the nature of consciousness and of mind are likely to be very important. I believe that the modern conception of mind is in infancy. Concepts of matter have seen great advance from the time of the advent of Western Philosophy: consider the various philosophical phases and then the changes in the scientific view from particles, to wave nature, through relativistic and quantum mechanical thought. There is a need for a concept of mind. This point relates to item I above

Third: The scientific problem

Footnotes