The A Priori Case for the Paranormal? [companion discussion thread]

It seems to me that Chalmers' distinction is legitimate because the qualia of perception and awareness - "What it is like to be an aware conscious person" - are the essence of consciousness and completely immaterial in all regards, while reasoning, conceptualization, intentionality, etc. are all factors that can be physically observed and measured as behaviors, which behaviors can at least possibly be understood as the possible result of neural computations. That makes them at least not as hard as the Hard Problem.

I think EJ Lowe's paper does a pretty good job of showing why Subjectivity is bound up with the Intentionality if not the other things you mention.

But I plan on digging into the non-physical aspect of at least some of what you list in the next few posts...

Starting off with a quote by the physicist Lee Smolin in his book Time Reborn:


And another by Brian Whitworth, taken from Quantum Realism, Chapter 1: The physical world as a virtual reality :


Finishing off this introductory post is the article by Hedda Hassel Mørch,  Is Matter Conscious?: Why the central problem in neuroscience is mirrored in physics:


Next up I'll try and tie the question of matter into the supposed "laws" of nature.

It seems to me that this mystery could tie into the apparent solution proposed by the sort of P2P virtual reality simulation hypothesis presented by Arvan. Here, "matter" including apparently irrational quantum mechanical actions and interactions at the subatomic level are artifacts of how the simulation is programmed to induce various experiences had by us, ultimately the "users" or "players" of the simulation, and ultimately are composed of pure information. Our "laws of physics" are ultimately how the world simulation is programmed, and could easily have been different. Of course then, since no designed exquisitely and intricately ordered system comes about from nothing, the question of Intelligent Design and the mystery of what great Intelligence(s) designed and created this world simulation raises its ugly head.

It seems to me that this mystery could tie into the apparent solution proposed by the sort of P2P virtual reality simulation hypothesis presented by Arvan. Here, "matter" including apparently irrational quantum mechanical actions and interactions at the subatomic level are artifacts of how the simulation is programmed to induce various experiences had by us, ultimately the "users" or "players" of the simulation, and ultimately are composed of pure information. Our "laws of physics" are ultimately how the world simulation is programmed, and could easily have been different. Of course then, since no designed exquisitely and intricately ordered system comes about from nothing, the question of Intelligent Design and the mystery of what great Intelligence(s) designed and created this world simulation raises its ugly head.

Yeah I do plan to get a bit into the simulation hypothesis stuff, as this is a Design argument that is yet another case of studying the supposed "physical" and coming to the conclusion that a Mind is involved.

Though as per the prior posts for myself it would have to be a simulation - like Dualist P2P - where consciousness is beyond the frame of the enclosing program, since Mind is responsible for and thus beyond the programs...guess I'll post some stuff about the non-computability of consciousness as well.

edit: Ah this will probably end up moved to the discussion thread, to keep this one just links to references.

[Laird]

I think EJ Lowe's paper does a pretty good job of showing why Subjectivity is bound up with the Intentionality if not the other things you mention.

It's an excellent paper. I was curious to find that David Chalmers in his original paper Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, to which EJ Lowe was responding, really does propose epiphenomenalism as the solution to the hard problem, even if he doesn't label it as such. This contextualises and perhaps even explains his framing of the "hard problem versus easy problems" distinction, which EJ Lowe takes apart really well.

Elsewhere, I've suggested that large-language models encode meaning and simulate understanding, and it's tempting to suggest - consistent with David Chalmers's approach in that paper - that this is exactly what conscious beings do, with the phenomenal experience of meaning and understanding being simply an epiphenomenal veneer tacked on top of that raw, mechanistic information processing.

I think that EJ Lowe is right though that this is not how it actually works for us as conscious beings: the phenomenal aspects of meaning and understanding are causally efficacious and integral to our mentation, and not mere tack-ons.

Similarly, when David writes, for example, that "To explain reportability, for instance, is just to explain how a system could perform the function of producing reports on internal states", an immediate issue (consistent with those raised more generally by EJ Lowe) is that he seems to ignore the reportability of the phenomenal experiences that he thinks are "hard" to explain. Since those phenomenal experiences are subject to the hard problem, then reporting on them seems by transference to be a hard problem too. This is a wedge that opens up the susceptibility of reporting in general to the hard problem, not just the reportability of phenomenal states. Admittedly, David does go on to allow that "This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role." That second sentence should, though, it seems to me, read: "Undoubtedly, it plays an important cognitive role."

I haven't followed the development of David's ideas, so I don't know whether his position is still epiphenomenalism (even if by some other name), but if they haven't changed much, then it's no longer a mystery why he thinks that artificially intelligent computers might become conscious, which had surprised some of us in another thread (which I now can't locate).

[Laird]

I think the previous post gave an intro to the Hard Problem of Subjectivity, but I would include the Empirical Case Against Materialism along with my prior links as something beyond an introduction but still IMO mostly graspable without too much diving into the weeds of technical philosophical terminology.

That's another excellent paper, and well worth the read, however, I tend to think that it's redundant, in that materialism is obviously and blatantly incoherent right from the start, without need for that deep analysis. By this I mean simply that on materialism, the effective definition of "matter" is "non-conscious stuff", and, by definition, non-conscious stuff is - well, not conscious(ness). End of story.

That leaves open the possibility of epiphenomenalism, but we have cogent arguments against that too based on the indubitable causal efficacy of consciousness.

There are also some who consider (micro)panpsychism to be compatible with materialism, and, on this consideration, matter has a different definition than above, which doesn't render materialism obviously incoherent, however, there's again a cogent argument against that: the intractability of the combination problem.

It's helpful to keep it simple where we can.

That's another excellent paper, and well worth the read, however, I tend to think that it's redundant, in that materialism is obviously and blatantly incoherent right from the start, without need for that deep analysis. By this I mean simply that on materialism, the effective definition of "matter" is "non-conscious stuff", and, by definition, non-conscious stuff is - well, not conscious(ness). End of story.

That leaves open the possibility of epiphenomenalism, but we have cogent arguments against that too based on the indubitable causal efficacy of consciousness.

There are also some who consider (micro)panpsychism to be compatible with materialism, and, on this consideration, matter has a different definition than above, which doesn't render materialism obviously incoherent, however, there's again a cogent argument against that: the intractability of the combination problem.

It's helpful to keep it simple where we can.

It's funny that now I would agree with you, but years ago when I first read the paper I found it very persuasive. It took a long time for me to realize the simplicity that it's the Materialists who say the "physical" has no mentality but also claim this non-mental stuff can produce consciousness!

Regarding Micropanpyschism I agree the Combination Problem just feels intractable, especially beyond just considering Subjectivity but also Aboutness of Thought & Reason. I think a micro-panpsychist could try and paper over the mystery of how my feeling of red, for example, is made of up some atoms feeling red...but how could micropanpsychism make a coherent case that my thought about the red leaf is really the combined though or particles. And my logical thoughts seem even more impossible to explain that way.

[Laird]

It's funny that now I would agree with you, but years ago when I first read the paper I found it very persuasive. It took a long time for me to realize the simplicity that it's the Materialists who say the "physical" has no mentality but also claim this non-mental stuff can produce consciousness!

Yep! Some, like @Merle, try to get around this obvious incoherence by saying not that (non-conscious) matter is conscious(ness), but that consciousness is what (non-conscious) matter (the brain in particular) "does". This is nothing but a clever obfuscation. The dynamism of matter is not separable from the matter itself, and has no additional properties that could confer consciousness despite matter's being defined as non-conscious in the first place. The motion of non-conscious matter remains (by definition) non-conscious.

An alternative response is:

Hey, yeah, consciousness is what the brain does. And numbers are what litters of kittens do. Colours are what grocery shopping does. And time is what simultaneous equations do. Isn't it fun to talk nonsense?!

Regarding Micropanpyschism I agree the Combination Problem just feels intractable, especially beyond just considering Subjectivity but also Aboutness of Thought & Reason. I think a micro-panpsychist could try and paper over the mystery of how my feeling of red, for example, is made of up some atoms feeling red...but how could micropanpsychism make a coherent case that my thought about the red leaf is really the combined though or particles. And my logical thoughts seem even more impossible to explain that way.

Agreed. It's a problem decomposable into a set of sub-problems, some of which are more intractable than others.

[Laird]

Some more introductory videos:

Those were top-rate. I watched the second one a couple of times just to make sure it all cohered and sank in.

It's an excellent paper. I was curious to find that David Chalmers in his original paper Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, to which EJ Lowe was responding, really does propose epiphenomenalism as the solution to the hard problem, even if he doesn't label it as such. This contextualises and perhaps even explains his framing of the "hard problem versus easy problems" distinction, which EJ Lowe takes apart really well.

Elsewhere, I've suggested that large-language models encode meaning and simulate understanding, and it's tempting to suggest - consistent with David Chalmers's approach in that paper - that this is exactly what conscious beings do, with the phenomenal experience of meaning and understanding being simply an epiphenomenal veneer tacked on top of that raw, mechanistic information processing.

I think that EJ Lowe is right though that this is not how it actually works for us as conscious beings: the phenomenal aspects of meaning and understanding are causally efficacious and integral to our mentation, and not mere tack-ons.

Similarly, when David writes, for example, that "To explain reportability, for instance, is just to explain how a system could perform the function of producing reports on internal states", an immediate issue (consistent with those raised more generally by EJ Lowe) is that he seems to ignore the reportability of the phenomenal experiences that he thinks are "hard" to explain. Since those phenomenal experiences are subject to the hard problem, then reporting on them seems by transference to be a hard problem too. This is a wedge that opens up the susceptibility of reporting in general to the hard problem, not just the reportability of phenomenal states. Admittedly, David does go on to allow that "This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role." That second sentence should, though, it seems to me, read: "Undoubtedly, it plays an important cognitive role."

I haven't followed the development of David's ideas, so I don't know whether his position is still epiphenomenalism (even if by some other name), but if they haven't changed much, then it's no longer a mystery why he thinks that artificially intelligent computers might become conscious, which had surprised some of us in another thread (which I now can't locate).

As usual, it is disappointing that this authority like most others sticks to the materialist philosophical realm and still dismisses or simply ignores the large body of paranormal empirical evidence that consciousness simply can't be an epiphenomenon of brain matter's activities, since such an epiphenomenon is still tied to the living activities of neural structures and therefore is annihilated when brain activitity ceases. This paranormal evidence bypasses and trumps all the philosophical discourse and of course lies in veridical NDEs, reincarnation cases (CORTs), mediumistic communications, etc. 

As to the belief that artificially intelligent computers might become conscious, this ignores the well-known statistical large language processing and modelling basis of these generative AI systems like ChatGPT, where the process of computing is totally alien to consciousness, being at base merely a huge amount of data base accumulation from scanning billions of lines of text or coding or other human-produced material from the Internet and processing this for the most likely patterns fitting the requested answers. Such engines obviously have no intentionality, thought, awareness, inner life of any kind. It would seem impossible for such a data processing engine to somehow produce consciousness as an epiphenomenon from such an at base mass of mechanical calculations, which ultimately can be broken down into individual binary logical arithmentic processing of bit strings and via this doing statistics and correlation. Aside from the fact that these processes are absolutely nothing like the massive neural data processing that goes on in the active human brain.

As usual, it is disappointing that this authority like most others sticks to the materialist philosophical realm and still dismisses or simply ignores the large body of paranormal empirical evidence that consciousness simply can't be an epiphenomenon of brain matter's activities, since such an epiphenomenon is still tied to the living activities of neural structures and therefore is annihilated when brain activitity ceases. This paranormal evidence bypasses and trumps all the philosophical discourse and of course lies in veridical NDEs, reincarnation cases (CORTs), mediumistic communications, etc.

I think the challenge here is the degree to which the a priori considerations are taken in tandem with evidence.

If someone is a hard core Physicalist, it feels less likely any of the accumulated Survival/Psi evidence would convince them on its own.