The Hard Problem is here to stay

One science writer finally hit the nail on the head when it comes to the mystery of consciousness. His name was Michael Hanlon, the title of the article is "The mental block -
Consciousness is the greatest mystery in science - Don’t believe the hype: the Hard Problem is here to stay". Too bad the article is posthumous. It was published in 2014, but it is just as valid today. I guess Hanlon still had some scientism in his way of thinking, since the one hypothesis Hanlon didn't cover was that consciousness is simply, fundamentally, unknowable to science because it is basically of another realm of existence. That other ways of knowing must be needed.

On the hubris and failure of modern neuroscience in dealing with this problem:

"A triple barrage of neuroscientific, computational and evolutionary artillery promises to reduce the hard problem to a pile of rubble. Today’s consciousness jockeys talk of p‑zombies and Global Workspace Theory, mirror neurones, ego tunnels, and attention schemata. They bow before that deus ex machina of brain science, the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. Their work is frequently very impressive and it explains a lot. All the same, it is reasonable to doubt whether it can ever hope to land a blow on the hard problem.

For example, fMRI scanners have shown how people’s brains ‘light up’ when they read certain words or see certain pictures. Scientists in California and elsewhere have used clever algorithms to interpret these brain patterns and recover information about the original stimulus — even to the point of being able to reconstruct pictures that the test subject was looking at. This ‘electronic telepathy’ has been hailed as the ultimate death of privacy (which it might be) and as a window on the conscious mind (which it is not).

The problem is that, even if we know what someone is thinking about, or what they are likely to do, we still don’t know what it’s like to be that person. Hemodynamic changes in your prefrontal cortex might tell me that you are looking at a painting of sunflowers, but then, if I thwacked your shin with a hammer, your screams would tell me you were in pain. Neither lets me know what pain or sunflowers feel like for you, or how those feelings come about. In fact, they don’t even tell us whether you really have feelings at all. One can imagine a creature behaving exactly like a human — walking, talking, running away from danger, mating and telling jokes — with absolutely no internal mental life. Such a creature would be, in the philosophical jargon, a zombie. (Zombies, in their various incarnations, feature a great deal in consciousness arguments.)"

On qualia:

As to where the qualia ‘happen’, the answer could be ‘nowhere and nowhen’. If we do not believe in magic forcefields, but do believe that a conscious event, a quale, can do stuff, then we have a problem (in addition to the problem of explaining the quale in the first place). As David Chalmers says, ‘the problem of how qualia causally affect the physical world remains pressing… with no easy answer in sight’. It is very hard to see how a mind generated by whirring cogs can affect the whirring of those cogs in turn.

Conclusion:

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Daniel Dennett wrote that: ‘Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery.’ A few years later, Chalmers added: ‘[It] may be the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe.’ They were right then and, despite the tremendous scientific advances since, they are still right today. I do not think that the evolutionary ‘explanations’ for consciousness that are currently doing the rounds are going to get us anywhere. These explanations do not address the hard problem itself, but merely the ‘easy’ problems that orbit it like a swarm of planets around a star. The hard problem’s fascination is that it has, to date, completely and utterly defeated science. Nothing else is like it. We know how genes work, we have (probably) found the Higgs Boson; but we understand the weather on Jupiter better than we understand what is going on in our own heads. This is remarkable.

...I think it is possible that, compared with the hard problem, the rest of science is a sideshow. Until we get a grip on our own minds, our grip on anything else could be suspect.

It is always awkward for me, an engineer, to pronounce theory about consciousness. I am totally unqualified. At the same time, any academic claiming authority over the subject who ignores the evidence for "magic forcefields" is guilty of scientism. Consider First Sight Theory by James Carpenter. It is based on the proposition that perception for everyone begins with psychic sensing of environmental information and that expression is always accompanied by a psychokinetic influence into the environment. That is becoming a strong contender as at least a partial model of consciousness.


Yes, "psychic" involves one of those "magic forcefields." Consider the list of research reports here: A List of 100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers that Offer Scientific Evidence for Psi Phenomena and here: Selected Psi Research Publications. An important working hypothesis in parapsychology is referred to as the Psi Field Hypothesis. In a similar sense of Bohm's Implicate Order, it is speculated that a field of "near-physical, but not physical" space permeated physical space. The field is apparently nonlocal and possibly nontemporal. It acts as a medium of propagation for thought, specifically in the form of intentionality.

The above-listed research establishes a solid reason to require that dualism is part of any theorization about consciousness. It also argues for the requirement that collective influences be considered for informing intention. Any research that does not consider these "nonphysical influences" is incomplete.

 An important working hypothesis in parapsychology is referred to as the Psi Field Hypothesis. In a similar sense of Bohm's Implicate Order, it is speculated that a field of "near-physical, but not physical" space permeated physical space. The field is apparently nonlocal and possibly nontemporal. It acts as a medium of propagation for thought, specifically in the form of intentionality.

This Psi Field would need to be unlike any of the fields of physics in that it would unlimitedly propagate through shields like Faraday cages, and not be subject to attenuation with distance (no inverse-square law). 

A complete working hypothesis of consciousness would crucially need not just a means for propagation of thought, but also a sub-hypothesis of consciousness itself. I agree that some form of dualism seems to be required. What is needed is a hypothesis that explains the empirical evidence of parapsychology and psychical research that consciousness is not generated by the physical brain, but that there is some sort of immaterial and mobile center of human consciousness that can separate from the brain and body and apparently exist in another realm. Most crucially, it would need to address the Hard Problem. How far does the Psi Field Hypothesis go in engaging with these requirements?

I guess Hanlon still had some scientism in his way of thinking, since the one hypothesis Hanlon didn't cover was that consciousness is simply, fundamentally, unknowable to science because it is basically of another realm of existence. That other ways of knowing must be needed.

By consciousness in another realm you mean the aspect of the agent that has a first person perspective, or do you mean that the aspects of the world that are not measurable by physics come from an intersection between the physical world and the consciousness world?

It is always awkward for me, an engineer, to pronounce theory about consciousness. I am totally unqualified. At the same time, any academic claiming authority over the subject who ignores the evidence for "magic forcefields" is guilty of scientism. Consider First Sight Theory by James Carpenter. It is based on the proposition that perception for everyone begins with psychic sensing of environmental information and that expression is always accompanied by a psychokinetic influence into the environment. That is becoming a strong contender as at least a partial model of consciousness.


Yes, "psychic" involves one of those "magic forcefields." Consider the list of research reports here: A List of 100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers that Offer Scientific Evidence for Psi Phenomena and here: Selected Psi Research Publications. An important working hypothesis in parapsychology is referred to as the Psi Field Hypothesis. In a similar sense of Bohm's Implicate Order, it is speculated that a field of "near-physical, but not physical" space permeated physical space. The field is apparently nonlocal and possibly nontemporal. It acts as a medium of propagation for thought, specifically in the form of intentionality.

The above-listed research establishes a solid reason to require that dualism is part of any theorization about consciousness. It also argues for the requirement that collective influences be considered for informing intention. Any research that does not consider these "nonphysical influences" is incomplete.

Curious, where can I learn more about the Psi Field Hypothesis - hoping for something more directed than Google might offer? Thanks!

By consciousness in another realm you mean the aspect of the agent that has a first person perspective, or do you mean that the aspects of the world that are not measurable by physics come from an intersection between the physical world and the consciousness world?

Not just the first person subjectivity aspect of a conscious agent. It seems to me that all of the other related properties of conscious awareness, thought and mind are probably of another realm of existence than the physical world. Properties of mind which can’t be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena investigatable by physical science. Examples that I have already listed:

– intentionality – the quality of directing toward achieving an object
– aboutness: being about something
– this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- having meaning
– qualities of subjective awareness – i.e. qualia: blueness, redness, loudness, softness

The Psi Field Hypothesis is based on studies that seem to indicate that distance is not a factor. In effect, here is everywhere. In remote viewing experiments, for instance, a viewer in New York is able to describe in real-time, what a person is seeing in England. There appears to be no "here" in Psi space. An EVP practitioner in New York can be on the phone with a person in Chicago for an EVP session and record the apparent voice of a loved one who died in Dallas; again, in real-time. The popular wisdom about needing to be where the person died or is buried to record the voice of a loved one is simply lore.

We have found no way to shield from the propagation of psi influence. For instance, EVP can be recorded with a recorder placed in a metal container that is buried a foot or so underground. One study that produced EVP was conducted in a Mil-Spec Faraday Cage. One need not accept the survival hypothesis to accept that such recordings indicate the existence of a nonphysical means of propagating thought.

The Psi Field Hypothesis is just concerned with the existence of a nonphysical aspect of reality that permeates physical space. Other aspects of mind require the existence of such a field. However, given the validity of the Psi Field Hypothesis, it becomes reasonable to argue that if thought is propagated in nonphysical space, so might consciousness have nonphysical properties.
Another important reference is that much research has shown the ability of intentionality to influence physical processes. We see this in the effect of intention and attention on random event generators. The formation of voice for EVP is modeled as the transform of audio-frequency noise into the intended order of speech. See A Model for EVP.

Rupert Sheldrake has proposed the Hypothesis of Formative Causation. The idea is that different species of life share a nonphysical field he refers to as a morphic field. Like DNA, this field represents the instructions for morphogenic differentiation. Since the information is shared across all instances of the species, it is necessarily nonphysical. Think of the hypothesis as a contemporary version of the Lamarckism transmutation theory. There is some empirical support for the hypothesis.

If consciousness is a product of the brain, then there is no need to argue the existence of nonphysical reality. Thought would be physical ... somehow. All of the parapsychological and even more fringe transcommunication research would be the work of delusional researchers. My above comments would be inappropriate. The correct perspective would be body-centric.

If consciousness is not a product of the brain, then a mind-centric perspective is necessary. Theorizing about consciousness from the body-centric perspective would be like trying to study the moon from the bottom of the ocean.

The language of mind would probably be visualization, intention and attention rather than anything to do with physical energy. Since it would exist in psi space, it would be nonlocal and possibly nontemperal. It might be a collective consciousness à la morphic resonance, in which case, a person would be a local differentiation of the collective field.

Everything we see in transcommunication indicates that psi space is conceptual while physical space is objective. The implication is that we assign physical mean to environmental signals related to things we think of as physical.

Here is an example of how body-centric verses mind-centric perspectives make a difference. If mind is independent of the body (personality-centric), there is a reason to argue that we have a spiritual self and a human self as an entangled person. We do see this in the way the human instincts drive us to assure the survival of its gene pool at the cost of everyone else's gene pool. The occasional turn toward altruism is arguably a characteristic of our spiritual self. Altruism for the sake of it is not a survival response.

My point is that there is ample reason to consider the mind-centric perspective when theorizing about mind. I am not qualified to say what that model will look like when those who are qualified finally consider that perspective. I am qualified to say that they are not currently accounting for an important part of the evidence.

Of course, I have taken a stab at it in Your Immortal Self. See the Concepts section: https://ethericstudies.org/category/concepts/

Not just the first person subjectivity aspect of a conscious agent. It seems to me that all of the other related properties of conscious awareness, thought and mind are probably of another realm of existence than the physical world. Properties of mind which can’t be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena investigatable by physical science. Examples that I have already listed:

– intentionality – the quality of directing toward achieving an object
– aboutness: being about something
– this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- having meaning
– qualities of subjective awareness – i.e. qualia: blueness, redness, loudness, softness

Where is [perception] occurring given these perceptive qualities are of the world? It seems you're suggesting there is a physical world that is sensed by an entity in another realm?

It seems to me it makes more sense for there to be a singular reality where the perceiving agent and the world both exist, whether that's Neutral Monism, Idealism, Cosmopanpsychism, etc...

Where is [perception] occurring given these perceptive qualities are of the world? It seems you're suggesting there is a physical world that is sensed by an entity in another realm?

It seems to me it makes more sense for there to be a singular reality where the perceiving agent and the world both exist, whether that's Neutral Monism, Idealism, Cosmopanpsychism, etc...

Yes. Or (preferably) by an entity of another, fundamentally different substance not subject to the laws of our time/space/matter/energy continuum. Where both separate continua exist, but with some interaction permitted only in certain specified ways, mostly through the interface of complex brains. Other means of interaction would be the direct manipulation of matter by powerful spiritual entities for purposes such as intelligent design intervention in evolution. 

I do prefer such an interactive dualism. I think it is much more in accordance with the empirical evidence of psychical research, including NDEs, reincarnation and mediumistic communications.

Curious, where can I learn more about the Psi Field Hypothesis - hoping for something more directed than Google might offer? Thanks!

From the Parapsychological Association Glossary of Terms, Psi is "A general blanket term, proposed by B. P. Wiesner and seconded by R. H. Thouless (1942), and used either as a noun or adjective to identify paranormal processes and paranormal causation; the two main categories of psi are psi-gamma (paranormal cognition; extrasensory perception) and psi-kappa (paranormal action; psychokinesis), although the purpose of the term “psi” is to suggest that they might simply be different aspects of a single process, rather than

"distinct and essentially different processes. Strictly speaking “psi” also applies to survival of death. Some thinkers prefer to use “psi” as a purely descriptive term for anomalous outcomes, as suggested by Palmer (1986, p. l39), who defines it as “a correspondence between the cognitive or physiological activity of an organism and events in its external environment that is anomalous with respect to generally accepted basic limiting principles of nature such as those articulated by C. D. Broad.” [From the Greek, psi, twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet; from the Greek psyche, “mind, soul”]"

The first use of "Psi Field" I found was from Roll. Roll, W.G. (1964). ‘The Psi Field’, Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association 1, 32-65.si Field 

One of my problems with the field of parapsychology is that they are piss-poor communicators of their work to the public. They often refer to a psi field or allude to it as part of their cultural assumptions. The concept is important and useful for explaining other work, so I finally tried to explain it in the context of my work at Etheric Fields.

I think "Psi Field" is morphing into "Consciousness Field" as parapsychologists try to keep up with popular topics in scientific circles. See FieldREG II: Consciousness Field Effects: Replications and Explorations for instance: "This paper summarizes the status as of June, 1997, of an ongoing investigation of random event generator (REG) anomalies associated with human consciousness that may be indicative of something like a ª consciousness field,º whereby particular states of group consciousness may be manifested in small
but significant changes in sensitive physical systems."

I stick to Psi Field because it does act as a medium of propagation rather than a thing like consciousness. To model these concepts, it is necessary to have the granularity to parse out the effects as they are influenced by the characteristics.

I hope that helps a little.