Chapter 1: A Place for Consciousness

[hypnagogue]

You can start by telling yourself to think of whatever- the number two. This may bring up several images: the image of 2 as a point on a number line or in some sequence or expression or equation or a collection of 2 things or the visual image "2" by itself. These are all rejected as not being the number two, and eventually, there is nothing left; no more images are supplied. If I then ask myself if I am thinking, I can definitely say yes. If I ask myself what I am thinking about, I can only say that I am thinking about nothing; It's wrong to say I am thinking about the number two because there is nothing left that resembles the number two in any way. So once I'm finally in the state of thinking about nothing, that state is the same as the state I entered by thinking about the number "one" and by thinking about a dimensionless point and by thinking about a meaningless word like panfobletizer or jerd and so on.

Initially you said, "there is something it is like for me to be thinking about a number (stripped of all its representational or relational or conceptual qualities)." In the above you say that in this way of thinking about a number, there is nothing in the experience that distinguishes thinking about "one" from thinking about "two." Going one step further, how can you distinguish that you're thinking about a number as opposed to not thinking about a number?

Your basis for saying that you're still thinking of a number seems to be that your experience of conscious effort remains throughout the process. But I don't know if that's sufficient. Suppose by rough analogy that you are holding aloft a platter with a brick on it; as you do this, you are aware of the effort it takes to hold the platter and brick against gravity. Now suppose you close your eyes, so your only remaining way of knowing that you're still holding the brick is by the conscious effort you still must continually expend. The question is, once you close your eyes, can you really be sure you're still holding what you know you were holding a moment ago? How do you know that, while your eyes were closed, someone didn't replace the brick with an object of the same weight?

I mean p-consciousness. I'm wondering if awareness or reflexivity would be considered conceptual, nonconceptual, or- if conceptual and nonconceptual are too broad- something else. That is, if awareness is special enough to deserve its own category (ignoring that the words "conceptual" and "nonconceptual" should logically cover everything). Perhaps I'm mistaken on this point, but it seems both the conceptual and nonconceptual aspects of a phenomenal state can be filtered out so that all is left is, in the case of thinking about nothing, the awareness, belief, feeling, or thought that one is thinking about nothing.

I'm still not sure exactly what you're getting at here. But in your example of 'filtering out' various aspects of experience, you are still left with some sort of qualitative feeling, are you not? It may seem subtle or somewhat alien, but is there not still something it is like to be you in this case?

 

[honestrosewater]

Initially you said, "there is something it is like for me to be thinking about a number (stripped of all its representational or relational or conceptual qualities)." In the above you say that in this way of thinking about a number, there is nothing in the experience that distinguishes thinking about "one" from thinking about "two." Going one step further, how can you distinguish that you're thinking about a number as opposed to not thinking about a number?

Yes, I wasn't being clear enough initially. As I said later, I can't say that I am thinking about a number. I can't say I am thinking about anything- in the normal way. Even saying that I am thinking about nothing isn't correct, but it's the closest I can come to a description. The distinctions I'm making rest on familiaritry. Thinking is a familiar process to me (believe it or not ). Thinking usually includes what you could call conscious effort and content. Thinking about nothing includes the conscious effort but not the content. I am not mistaken about the conscious effort part, if that is your question. I could be mistaken about the content part, but, if I am, the experience still differs markedly from the norm in that the content is so elusive (IF it is even there). I normally know what I'm thinking about.

Your basis for saying that you're still thinking of a number seems to be that your experience of conscious effort remains throughout the process.

I'm not still thinking of a number.

But I don't know if that's sufficient. Suppose by rough analogy that you are holding aloft a platter with a brick on it; as you do this, you are aware of the effort it takes to hold the platter and brick against gravity. Now suppose you close your eyes, so your only remaining way of knowing that you're still holding the brick is by the conscious effort you still must continually expend. The question is, once you close your eyes, can you really be sure you're still holding what you know you were holding a moment ago? How do you know that, while your eyes were closed, someone didn't replace the brick with an object of the same weight?

I don't know. I'm not saying that I'm experiencing the true nature of numbers or anything like that. It doesn't even matter that I started the process by thinking about a number; Numbers just gave me the idea to try this little exercise. Now that I've done it, I can do it with other objects.
As for the analogy, it isn't necessary that I know against what object I'm expending energy in order to know I'm expending energy. I can sense the tension in my muscles and feel them tire. Heck, you surely know I can sense a limb I don't even have anymore. Apparently it isn't necessary that I know what I'm thinking about in order to know I'm thinking.
The heart of the matter here is that, for at least some experiences, there is more to the experience than its content (in the narrow sense of "content", as used above). If Rosenberg agrees, how does his model (or definitons) incorporate this content-free aspect?

I'm still not sure exactly what you're getting at here. But in your example of 'filtering out' various aspects of experience, you are still left with some sort of qualitative feeling, are you not? It may seem subtle or somewhat alien, but is there not still something it is like to be you in this case?

Yes, that's what I've been saying. How does that content-free aspect fit into Rosenberg's model? Is it conceptual, nonconceptual, reflexive, representational, nonrepresentational, what? We seem to have clarified that his phosphenes example meant to focus on the nonconceptual, nonrepresentational aspect of an experience, especially as opposed to the conceptual, representational aspect. But the "thinking about nothing" experience I've described doesn't seem to have a nonconceptual, nonrepresentational aspect. A nonconceptual, nonrepresentational aspect is still a content, yes? It may not be possible to see nothing in the same way it is possible to think about nothing. I don't think vision has a "conscious effort" analogue. Seeing does have a "content" analogue: the conscious visual field (or whatever). And the content is what is missing when thinking about nothing.
There also doesn't seem to be a conceptual, representational aspect; Thinking about nothing doesn't involve any mental manipulation of objects, it isn't like thinking about anything else, it lacks meaning and utility, and just makes me tired.
If Rosenberg doesn't have something like a two-level model, where the higher level is aware of the lower level, how does he fit in a "thinking about nothing" experience? In a two-level model, I could easily say that the content of my "thinking about nothing" experience was "thinking about nothing".

 

[cyberdiction]

Honestrosewater wrote: "If Rosenberg doesn't have something like a two-level model, where the higher level is aware of the lower level, how does he fit in a "thinking about nothing" experience? In a two-level model, I could easily say that the content of my "thinking about nothing" experience was "thinking about nothing"."

SH replied: Consciousness is frequently described in terms of two subsets,
phenomenal consciousness and psychological consciousness.

Phenomenal consciousness: Suppose you are tired and you muscles ache. You get
into a hot shower and often for a few seconds one just luxuriates in the hot water,
not thinking about anything, just aware of the sensation.

Psychological consciousness: I think this thread crossed into "thinking about" which
is usually described under mind rather than consciousness. Or maybe psychological
consciousness rather than phenomenal consciousness. Suppose after a few moments
under the shower, it occurs to you to wonder if the water heater has been fixed, if
you are going to run out of hot water, and you might direct your focus of awareness
(intention) to your skin to sense if the water seems to be getting colder. I don't think this type of activity comes under _phenomenal consciousness_ which Gregg is trying
to describe.

Another case in which I'm not thinking about something is when I first wake up in
the morning. Sometimes I'm just aware of being awake without any thinking going on,
and this IMO, is phenomenal consciousness. Nearly all the time both aspects of
consciousness are functioning. The original assumptions and definitions/descriptions
of consciousness are of course arbitrary. It is impossible to avoid that. A discussion is
a matter of mutual consensus about agreed meanings of words to describe our shared
reality. We don't know what it is really like to be a bat, or to exactly know the content
of another person's mind. That content is approximated by description until there is an
agreement where we say 'I know what you mean'.

I think Gregg is operating in an existing cogsci philosophical framework and attempts
to clarify his meaning, in a fairly standard way. Surely, there could be other foundation
premises used for making definitions of our perceptions. Also, it is not possible to make
a categorization scheme that infallibly divides inner conscious experiences into one
category or another, there are bound to be fuzzy areas, as well as uncertainty as to
when more than one function is operating. Gregg is using words and so are we to talk
about our reality in language which is symbolic and abstract (non-physical).

I might be going to Sears to get a new coffee pot. I might glance at a tie with
some unique combination of colors that "catches my eye" and then I think that
tie will go good with a certain shirt I have. So there is combination of two aspects
of consciousness, distinguished primarily by temporal sequence.

Or I might be going to my closet to find a shirt the matches the pants I'm going
to wear. I might not have an exact color in mind. So first I receive the sensory
input of the colors and then a more mentative function arises and I select a
matching colored shirt. I think it is unlikely that all such subjective experiences
can be cataloged so neatly. Nor, later in the book, subjective time compared to
intersubjective time. There are, of course, algorithms or effective procedures,
which enable a computer to produce activities of a human mind, that the human
mind can perform with pencil, paper, and eraser, by rote or repetition, that require
no ingenuity to compute. -- Gregg is going to be making an inductive argument,
not a deductive argument, so it will not have a perfectly precise formulation.

Philosophically,
Stephen

 

[cyberdiction]

If Rosenberg doesn't have something like a two-level model, where the higher level is aware of the lower level, how does he fit in a "thinking about nothing" experience? In a two-level model, I could easily say that the content of my "thinking about nothing" experience was "thinking about nothing".

SH: It occurred to me after I wrote my other post that you might
not be talking about whether consciousness=mind=self=ego=awareness
as synonamous and where non-mutual dichotimies appeared.

The basic dichotomy (dualism) , or premise of the book is between
physicalism and I think it is called 'protoexperientalism'. Gregg also found
it necessary to analyze causality but this is later in the book (page 160).

"How can we become accustomed to thinking in terms of the determination
problem? Imagine a neural cluster NC, that is one of sixteen such clusters
NC_1 to NC_16 densely connected in the brain. How might we understand
their causal relations if the determination problem has not already been
resolved at a lower level of nature? Before we can say much to answer this
question, we first need a clearer way of thinking about what it asks, so
before describing the relations between these clusters I define two new
concepts." [SH: The ideas connect in my mind, but maybe not to others.]

Also thinking about nothing means nothing is a lack of experience, not the
experience of thinking about a something which happens to be nothing.
Your comment/argument is close to the logical fallacy of equivocation.

Plausibility not Provability,
Stephen

 

[honestrosewater]

Also thinking about nothing means nothing is a lack of experience, not the experience of thinking about a something which happens to be nothing. Your comment/argument is close to the logical fallacy of equivocation.

I've explained several times what I mean by "thinking about nothing", making several distinctions. I've distinguished thinking about nothing from not thinking:

What, my examples of thinking of red and a rose don't count? Fine, if you mean to not be thinking, yes, it's different, again, because thinking requires conscious effort, concentration, focus of attention, etc. ("Imagining" would be a better word than "thinking", but as long as you understand what I mean...)

I've distinguished thinking about nothing from thinking about nothing in particular:

If you mean to be thinking of nothing in particular, as in spacing out, that doesn't feel the same as thinking does; When thinking about nothing in particular, I'm not really paying attention to anything; The state lacks the concentration, effort, the literal intensity of feeling which is present when (actively) thinking. Actually, that would be a good way to describe the difference: passive and active. Just as one can passively and actively observe their environment.

I've distinguished thinking about nothing from automatic recall:

I would exclude another experience: rather automatically recalling facts, like how to spell your name or giving someone your phone number.

I've distinguished two meanings of "nothing".

Well, you may be onto something because I was going to say that nothing, to me, only has meaning relative to something else, namely something. So when I'm thinking about nothing, am I really thinking about nothing as relative to something? So far, the experiences are different, but I'll try it some more.

The experiences are still different.
I've explained how I justify the distinctions, acknowledged the inaccuracy of my use of "nothing", and admitted again that I may be mistaken about the absence of any content:

I can't say I am thinking about anything- in the normal way. Even saying that I am thinking about nothing isn't correct, but it's the closest I can come to a description. The distinctions I'm making rest on familiaritry. Thinking is a familiar process to me (believe it or not ). Thinking usually includes what you could call conscious effort and content. Thinking about nothing includes the conscious effort but not the content. I am not mistaken about the conscious effort part, if that is your question. I could be mistaken about the content part, but, if I am, the experience still differs markedly from the norm in that the content is so elusive (IF it is even there). I normally know what I'm thinking about.

When thinking about nothing as relative to something, IOW, thinking about the relationship between something and nothing, my thoughts have obvious content: the relationship between something and nothing. When thinking about nothing, in the way I have described it, my thoughts have no obvious content. How is my comment/argument close to the logical fallacy of equivocation?
If thinking about nothing doesn't make sense to anyone, I won't use it.

There are similarities and differences between my visual image of my father's face and my visual image of my mother's face. The two visual images are different in that my mother's face is visually different from my father's face; The two images differ in their visual content. The two visual images are similar in that they are both visual images. In fact, all visual images have something in common apart from my referring to them all as "visual images": There is something it is like for me to form (and maintain and inspect and experience and...) a visual image. For me, forming visual images is accompanied by a feeling, a focus of attention, some conscious effort distinct from the visual content of the image. The conscious effort is even directed towards the same "place": my "mind's eye". Whether or not my forming of visual images is accompanied by conscious effort is not up for debate. I just want to know where conscious effort fits in Rosenberg's scheme of things. If no one knows what I mean by conscious effort or visual content, I will attempt a better explanation or find other people's explanations of them.

 

[cyberdiction]

If no one knows what I mean by conscious effort or visual content, I will attempt a better explanation or find other people's explanations of them.

It still seems to me this is a matter of definitions. This is not an introductory
book. So in the literature "consciousness" is divided into two aspects though
there is dispute about this and qualia. Consciousness is made up of the
psychological aspect and the phenomenal aspect which has qualia associated
with it. Gregg intends to use phenomenal consciousness and qualia to defeat
physicalism. He says, "I mean phenomenal consciousness when I use the
word "consciousness". He means that is what he is referring to, not that
this is the only type of consciousness or all of consciousness. He also
says 'the central problem consciousness poses is where in nature to place
subjective experience, which is responsible for the subjective quality of
our existence. "Philosophers call this sense of consciousness
_phenomenal_ consciousness.

In the first chapter, I don't see that he definies the other sense or
aspect of consciousness which is called psychological; both senses
can be invoked to describe some experiences of consciousness.

Chalmers, Ronsenberg's zombie twin says,

"Conscious experience is not all there is to mind. At the
root of all this lie two quite distinct concepts of mind.
The first is what we may call the phenomenal concept of
mind. This is the concept of mind as conscious experience,
and of a mental state as a consciously experienced mental
state. This is the aspect of mind which is most perplexing
and with which we will be most concerned, but it does not
exhaust the mental.

The second is the psychological concept of mind. This is
the concept of mind as the causal or explanatory basis for
behavior. A state is mental in this sense if it plays a
certain kind of causal role in the production of behavior,
or at least if plays some appropriate role in the explanation
of behavior. On the psychological concept, it matters little
whether a mental state has a conscious feel or not. What
matters is the role it plays in our cognitive economy.

We might say that on the phenomenal concept, mind is
characterized by the way it feels, and on the psychological
concept, mind is characterized by what it does."

Gregg says, Phenomenal consciousness is not necessarily consciousness
_of_ anything _else_. Suppose you notice your pet canary is not
singing. You go to her cage and notice her on the floor of the cage
with her feet up. Your reaction might very well be to close your eyes,
begin to cry, and experience only grief or sorrow, without any other
thinking involved. Emotions are usually counted as qualia. But then
after awhile, you might start thinking about what to do next which
would be covered by the psychological aspect of consciosness.

So if you can somehow actively think of nothing, that would be
characterized by what it does, not by what you are experiencing.
Under anathesia, you would not be thinking, thus not thinking
of anything. I wouldn't call this thinking of nothing though
because it is a lack of experience. Page 4 goes into visual qualia.

"Daniel Dennett identifies four properties which are commonly
ascribed to qualia; that is, qualia are:

ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or
apprehended by any other means than direct experience.

intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which
do not change depending on the experience's relation to other
things.

private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are
systematically impossible.

directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that
is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale,
and to know all there is to know about that quale."

SH: Again, I think Gregg's focus is on qualia and phenomenal consciousness
because that is what he wants to use to argue against physicalism.

Regards,
Stephen

 

[hypnagogue]

Again, I think Gregg's focus is on qualia and phenomenal consciousness because that is what he wants to use to argue against physicalism.

That's backwards. He doesn't talk about phenomenal consciousness because he wants to defeat physicalism. Rather, he's interested in coming up with a framework that can account for p-consciousness, and argues against physicalism along the way because he doesn't believe it can do the job of being that framework.

 

[honestrosewater]

It still seems to me this is a matter of definitions.

Of course it's a matter of definitions- I want to know where conscious effort fits into Rosenberg's definitions. Conscious effort is an aspect of phenomenal consciousness. Is it qualitative content or not? If not, what is it?

From the rest of your post, it sounds like you didn't even read my last post, so I don't know what else to say.

Edit: Stephen, Rereading this post, it sounds very rude. I apologize. I appreciate you trying to help.

 

[hypnagogue]

I want to know where conscious effort fits into Rosenberg's definitions.

Conscious effort has a p-conscious aspect; it subjectively feels like something to expend conscious effort. It also has what cyberdiction called a psychological aspect; when we feel conscious effort, there is a certain type of mental function that is being performed.

 

[honestrosewater]

Conscious effort has a p-conscious aspect; it subjectively feels like something to expend conscious effort. It also has what cyberdiction called a psychological aspect; when we feel conscious effort, there is a certain type of mental function that is being performed.

Okay, so conscious effort (CE) is not a qualitative content or quale. CE is not a bare difference. Phenomenal consciousness includes facts about CE. CE is a "phenomenal quality", "phenomenal concept", "phenomenal content" (all p.5), or awareness. Does anyone know which one(s)?

 

[hypnagogue]

Okay, so conscious effort (CE) is not a qualitative content or quale. CE is not a bare difference. Phenomenal consciousness includes facts about CE. CE is a "phenomenal quality", "phenomenal concept", "phenomenal content" (all p.5), or awareness. Does anyone know which one(s)?

Think of it like this. The space of phenomenal qualities for a human includes certain kinds of experience that are described as "conscious effort." The space of mental capacities for a human includes certain kinds of mental functions, or certain kinds of properties of various mental functions, called "conscious effort." Let's call the former p-CE and the latter a-CE and see how the items on your list apply to these terms.

"CE is not a qualitative content or quale."
p-CE is a quale; a-CE is not.

"CE is not a bare difference."
According to Rosenberg, p-CE is not composed of bare difference because it is a quale. In the view Rosenberg will develop later on in the book, a-CE is not composed of bare differences either. According to physicalism, both a-CE and p-CE are composed of bare differences.

"Phenomenal consciousness includes facts about CE."
The facts about p-consciousness include facts about p-CE. The facts about p-consciousness do not include facts about a-CE (or, if they do, it is only in an indirect way).

"CE is a "phenomenal quality", "phenomenal concept", "phenomenal content" (all p.5), or awareness."

p-CE is a phenomenal quality and phenomenal content (these terms are interchangeable). I'm not sure about 'phenomenal concept' right now; I couldn't track down that term down on a quick scan. Neither p-CE nor a-CE are awareness, but both could be said to be objects of awareness.

 

[honestrosewater]

Think of it like this. The space of phenomenal qualities for a human includes certain kinds of experience that are described as "conscious effort." The space of mental capacities for a human includes certain kinds of mental functions, or certain kinds of properties of various mental functions, called "conscious effort." Let's call the former p-CE and the latter a-CE and see how the items on your list apply to these terms.

"CE is not a qualitative content or quale."
p-CE is a quale; a-CE is not.

"CE is not a bare difference."
According to Rosenberg, p-CE is not composed of bare difference because it is a quale. In the view Rosenberg will develop later on in the book, a-CE is not composed of bare differences either. According to physicalism, both a-CE and p-CE are composed of bare differences.

"Phenomenal consciousness includes facts about CE."
The facts about p-consciousness include facts about p-CE. The facts about p-consciousness do not include facts about a-CE (or, if they do, it is only in an indirect way).

"CE is a "phenomenal quality", "phenomenal concept", "phenomenal content" (all p.5), or awareness."

p-CE is a phenomenal quality and phenomenal content (these terms are interchangeable). I'm not sure about 'phenomenal concept' right now; I couldn't track down that term down on a quick scan. Neither p-CE nor a-CE are awareness, but both could be said to be objects of awareness.

Fabtabulous. Thank you.

Phenomenal concepts appear in his Loar quote (p.5). I think p-concepts and p-qualities are representational and nonrepresentational, respectively.?

 

[honestrosewater]

BTW, I mentioned this in another thread a few days ago, but no one responded. I'm mentioning it here because it seems like such a great example for this discussion. Plus, it's been rolling around my head for at least a month, and I can't let it go. Everyone can ignore it, of course, but I wanted to share.

A classic example of the use-mention confusion in paintings is the occurence of a palette in a painting. Whereas the palette is an illusion created by the representational skill of the painter, the paints on the painted palette are literal daubs of paint from the artist's palette. The paint plays itself- it does not symbolize anything else.

What if Rosenberg used this example instead of phospenes? Such a painting has both representational (an artist's palette) and nonrepresentational (literal daubs of paint) aspects. Additionally, the paints on the painted artist's palette seem to blur the representational and nonrepresentational aspects; The representation contains, in some way, the nonrepresentational aspects, and this seems to make those aspects representational. And the "nonrepresentation" contains, in some way, the representational aspects, but I don't think this makes those aspects nonrepresentational. Clarifying in what way they contain each other would be most helpful.

 

[cyberdiction]

Originally Posted by Gödel, Escher, Bach
A classic example of the use-mention confusion in paintings is the occurence of a palette in a painting. Whereas the palette is an illusion created by the representational skill of the painter, the paints on the painted palette are literal daubs of paint from the artist's palette. The paint plays itself- it does not symbolize anything else.

BTW, I mentioned this in another thread a few days ago, but no one responded. I'm mentioning it here because it seems like such a great example for this discussion. Plus, it's been rolling around my head for at least a month, and I can't let it go. Everyone can ignore it, of course, but I wanted to share.

Hi, I love GEB, it inspired 20 years curiosity into AI. One of the reasons I
am responding to your thread is because I want to be sure that I understand
the concept. So maybe I will be corrected also.

In my view, the wrong examples are being placed into the two categories
built by the two definitions for phenomenal consciousness and psychological
consciousness. Gregg says... "I see diffuse shapes floating in the blackness
and jumpy patches of diluted color. These are experiences and thus are
elements of phenomenal consciousness, even though they do not seem to
_represent_ anything." (page 1) The other quote which was close to this was
"Phenomenal consciousness is not necessarily consciousness of anything else."

Let us take Mona Lisa. Everybody recognizes some external visual image as
the painting of "Mona Lisa". But I think phenomenal consciousness refers to
the unique, very personal perception of that objective painting that differs
from everybody else's perception. Also that painting seems to evoke a
universal feeling of appreciation, the painting is very popular. But the very
personal way you feel about it, the quale, and the very personal way
someone everybody else feels about Mona Lisa, falls under phenomenal
consciousness, and everybody's qualia are unique from everybody elses.
That everybody has in common the ability to perceive an objective
phenomena, the Mona Lisa, if fundamentally different than everybody has
their own unique, subjective experience of that visual image. Like many
people might recognize the face of your grandfather, but it will mean
something else special to them which is different than the specialness to you.
Everybody will see a shade of brown in the picture, but not the same shade
of brown, that belongs to your own special personal experience.

I went out on a limb and exposed my possible-->likely misunderstanding of
qualia and phenomenal consciousness. I read your other post twice. I
thought that your post dwelt on examples which were not instances of
phenomenal consciousness or qualia but the more cognitive aspect/function
of psychological consciousness, which it doesn't seem Gregg goes into, at
least not early in the book.

Gregg also writes (4,5) "What is the place of consciousness in our world?
From where does phenomenal information come? Are phenomenal facts
ordinary physical facts? Are they the kind of facts that ordinary facts can
form a basis for? And, if so, in what way can physical facts provide a basis
for them? *We do not have good answers to these questions yet*."

I admit that the following is subjective impression: I thought you were
asking questions that were not going to be answerable in terms of the above
quote and that you might have had an expectation that the philosophical
position Gregg was offereing went beyond plausibility with some major
unanswered gaps or areas left in uncertainty so not at all like a Physics
theory which has a lot of experimental evidence to convince a person.

I have read about this. There are major conflicts between philosophers
about what constitutes phenomenal consciousness and what are
qualia and even if they exist. So I think Gregg's framework is going to
have fuzziness.
I did think Dennett's description of qualia seemed reasonable.

I have been learning in this thread and maybe something I write today
will contradict an earlier post and I will lose my philosophy merit badge.

Edit: I have been reading some Christof Koch, a neurobiologist about qualia.
http://klab.caltech.edu/cns120/videos.html (lecture 18 maybe 14)
He seems to indicate looking at the ground is a phenomenological aspect of
consciousness, so I could likely be wrong about what I wrote in this regard.

In the spirit of the quest for truth,
Stephen

 

[honestrosewater]

Stephen,
I think qualia are unique only in that they are a part of your experience, and you are unique as an experiencer (but what do I know? ). It could be that red looks the same to you as it does to me and toothaches feel the same to you as they do to me and so on.

Your descriptions of qualia seem to all include representations. I've been told that qualia are defined by Rosenberg as being nonrepresentational. Apparently, representational and nonrepresentational aspects of our experience are both meaningful to us. But, allegedly, they are meaningful in different ways (I really don't understand the difference).
Your experience of the Mona Lisa probably has several levels of qualia and several levels of interpretation (by "interpretation" I mean the process of forming representations or a system consisting of representations). Just as a rough example, if you could see the Mona Lisa in the way I imagine a painter easily could, the first level of qualia may consist of just patches of various hues, values, and saturations. To this level of qualia, you can apply an interpretation; You may interpret some patch of hues, values, and saturations as representing a 3D shape and that shape as a smiling mouth, another as representing an eye, another as a dirt road, etc. Another level of qualia can arise from this interpretation. This level of qualia may consist of the feeling of being looked at and smiled at, of smiling or posing for a portrait, of traveling down a winding dirt road, etc. To this level of qualia, you can apply an interpretation; You may interpret your feeling of shyness and uneasiness arising from being smiled at as representing, well, I don't know, something about your personality. You may also bring other things to the painting, such as some knowledge or suspicion about the relationship between the painter and his subject or admiration for the painter's skill. You may be listening to some music and interpret the flow of the music as corresponding to the flow of the lines of the painting, the pitch to the colors, the timbre to the texture, and so on, qualia of the music and qualia of the painting representing each other. Another level of qualia can arise from these interpretations, and other interpretations can be applied to this level of qualia.
The point is that there are several types of qualia, and qualia themselves are not representations though they may arise from representations and representations may arise from them. That's my understanding of things anyway. I think Rosenberg makes the same point with the Necker Cube, but he speaks of conceptualization instead of interpretation (they mean the same thing to me).
There certainly were representational aspects to my examples, but I was focusing (or trying to focus) on the nonrepresentational aspects.

 

[cyberdiction]

Stephen,
I think qualia are unique only in that they are a part of your experience, and you are unique as an experiencer (but what do I know? ). It could be that red looks the same to you as it does to me and toothaches feel the same to you as they do to me and so on.

SH: Thank you for providing a well-considered response. This particular part
of the story seems ok to me. Our brains structures are only similar, not identical, so it seems unlikely we could obtain identical shades of color if we
both looked at the same object. This is not the part which bothers me.

Honestrose water wrote:
Your descriptions of qualia seem to all include representations. I've been told that qualia are defined by Rosenberg as being nonrepresentational. Apparently, representational and nonrepresentational aspects of our experience are both meaningful to us. But, allegedly, they are meaningful in different ways (I really don't understand the difference).

SH: We get to the problem I also find with this, at least approximately :-)
And I did some work to look into phenomena or sensory data that would impact our eyes but doesn't get passed onto consciousness/awareness.
P-consciousness is supposed to composed of conscious phenomena. But
there is evidence that there is neuronal activity that occurs before we
become conscious of taking or deciding to take an action. Like we start
to remove our hands from a hot stimulus before we reach such a decision.

http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwphil/pctall.html by Austen Clark
"Ned Block introduced the technical sense of the term
"phenomenal consciousness" (or P-consciousness) in the
course of contrasting it with what he called "access
consciousness". Of course since it cannot be analyzed
in terms of functional or psychological notions, it is
(regrettably) impossible to give a definition, but one
can at least list some synonyms and point to examples.

Block says:
"P-consciousness is experience. P-conscious properties are
experiential ones. P-conscious states are experiential,
that is, a state is P-conscious if it has experiential
properties. The totality of the experiential properties
of a state are "what it is like" to have it. Moving from
synonyms to examples, we have P-conscious states when we
see, hear, smell, taste, and have pains. P-conscious
properties include the experiential properties of
sensations, feelings, and perceptions, but I would also
include thoughts, wants, and emotions. (Block 1995, 230)"

SH: I had gone searching on the internet. I couldn't find a consistent
definition of "phenomenal consciousness" nor qualia. I don think there is
a definition. I see lots of examples. But I couldn't come up with a rule
that allowed prediction of something like your grandfather's face and
how/what response that would illicit from your consciousness-- suppose
there was more than just an emotion evoked, but a thought like how
old is he now and when is his birthday. If you want to include "thoughts"
like Ned Block does in the above quote, how can one distinguish between
p-consciousness and a-consciousness? Chalmers seems to have a
different point of view, without including thought.

Chalmers says a mental state is conscious if it has a
qualitative feel-an associated quality of experience.
These qualitative feels are also known as phenomenal
properties, or qualia for short. The problem of
explaining these phenomenal properties is just the
problem of explaining consciousness. This is the really
hard part of the mind-body problem. (Chalmers 1996, 4)

He says that "what it means for a state to be phenomenal
is for it to feel a certain way" (Chalmers 1996, 12).
By "feel a certain way" Chalmers means not just tactile
experience, but sensory appearances of any kind,
including visual, auditory, and so on. So conscious
mental states are states that have a "phenomenal feel".

SH: This just seems circular to me.

Honestrosewater wrote:
Your experience of the Mona Lisa probably has several levels of qualia and several levels of interpretation (by "interpretation" I mean the process of forming representations or a system consisting of representations). Just as a rough example, if you could see the Mona Lisa in the way I imagine a painter easily could, the first level of qualia may consist of just patches of various hues, values, and saturations. To this level of qualia, you can apply an interpretation; You may interpret some patch of hues, values, and saturations as representing a 3D shape and that shape as a smiling mouth, another as representing an eye, another as a dirt road, etc. Another level of qualia can arise from this interpretation. This level of qualia may consist of the feeling of being looked at and smiled at, of smiling or posing for a portrait, of traveling down a winding dirt road, etc. To this level of qualia, you can apply an interpretation; You may interpret your feeling of shyness and uneasiness arising from being smiled at as representing, well, I don't know, something about your personality. You may also bring other things to the painting, such as some knowledge or suspicion about the relationship between the painter and his subject or admiration for the painter's skill. You may be listening to some music and interpret the flow of the music as corresponding to the flow of the lines of the painting, the pitch to the colors, the timbre to the texture, and so on, qualia of the music and qualia of the painting representing each other. Another level of qualia can arise from these interpretations, and other interpretations can be applied to this level of qualia.
The point is that there are several types of qualia, and qualia themselves are not representations though they may arise from representations and representations may arise from them. That's my understanding of things anyway. I think Rosenberg makes the same point with the Necker Cube, but he speaks of conceptualization instead of interpretation (they mean the same thing to me).
There certainly were representational aspects to my examples, but I was focusing (or trying to focus) on the nonrepresentational aspects.

SH: I suppose you understand this better than I do. I will not dispute your
attribution of what is qualia. Rather, I have a problem with seeing this as
distinct types of consciousness; I guess the right way to put it is that they
seem like artificial categories constructed to advance a theory.

Remember the earlier post:

"CE is not a qualitative content or quale."
p-CE is a quale; a-CE is not.

"CE is not a bare difference."
According to Rosenberg, p-CE is not composed of bare difference because it is a quale. In the view Rosenberg will develop later on in the book, a-CE is not composed of bare differences either. According to physicalism, both a-CE and p-CE are composed of bare differences.

"Phenomenal consciousness includes facts about CE."
The facts about p-consciousness include facts about p-CE. The facts about p-consciousness do not include facts about a-CE (or, if they do, it is only in an indirect way).
------------------------------------------------------------------

SH: I suppose this addresses the issue -- I guess this is to hard for me,
and more work than I want to put into it. Nice chatting with you.

Good luck,
Stephen

 

[selfAdjoint]

Just a question relevant to this discussion. Does Rosenberg discuss blindsight at all? This seems an example of perception that the perceivers are not conscious of. I know that this is a much discussed phenomenon in consciousness research.

 

[cyberdiction]

Just a question relevant to this discussion. Does Rosenberg discuss blindsight at all? This seems an example of perception that the perceivers are not conscious of. I know that this is a much discussed phenomenon in consciousness research.

Blindsight - the ability to respond appropriately to visual
inputs while lacking the feeling of having seen them - might
be something which only occurs in cases of brain damage, but
seems much more likely to be a significant phenomenon of
intact brain function as well. Indeed, it seems likely that
blindsight (and similar phenomena in other spheres) is an
important ingredient of of a variety of activities where one
wants to move quickly and appropriately, without
"thinking about it".

SH: I haven't come across it yet, but some of my reading is skimming.
This example may be interesting too:

"When we propose that a state of phenomenal consciousness is a
state of sensing something that looks red, which of these senses
[epistemic (knowing) or non-epistemic] of "looks" is meant? The
first possibility is that we are using "looks" in its epistemic
sense. Consider, for example, Wilfrid Sellars' account of what
it means to say "that looks red". Sellars argued that "looks
red" is logically more complicated than "is red"; he says
"being red is logically prior, is a logically simpler notion,
than looking red" (Sellars 1963, 142). To illustrate the
point Sellars tells a story about a necktie shop, whose owner
John has never used electric lighting, and has never reported
the colour of anything except under "standard conditions" of
northern daylight. John has no locutions for reporting
appearances or how colours look; he just reports what the
colour is. Then at last one day John installs electric lighting
and turns it on for the first time. Under the new lights a blue
necktie (as we would say) looks green. His friend Jim
demonstrates how the apparent colour of the necktie changes
depending on the illumination. Initially John is befuddled,
since he doesn't want to say that the blue necktie is green
when inside the shop, or that the lighting changes its colour.
But Sellars tutors him, when inside the lit shop, to stifle
his otherwise natural report that the necktie is green. He is
taught to say first "It is as though I were seeing the necktie
to be green" (Sellars 1963, 143). Finally he acquires a new
locution: the necktie looks green."

SH: There is an experiment which apparently confirms Sellers position.
For Short Presentation Times, Two Stimuli Blend into One
"In one of Efron's experiments, a small red disk, shown for 10 msec on a
monitor, was immediately followed by a green disk at the same location,
also for 10 msec. Instead of seeing a red light turn into a green one, subjects
saw a single yellow flash. Similarly, if a 20 msec blue light was followed by a
20 msec yellow light, a white flash was perceived, but never a sequence of
two lights whose color changed."

SH: To me, this substantiates the view that there can be a difference
between seeing a color as it is and seeing what the color appears to be,
even though we may see the same shade of the color.

"Sellars notes that the experiences that would lead one to
report "it looks green" or "it is green" might as experiences
be indistinguishable from one another. "Two experiences may
be identical as experiences, and yet one be properly referred
to as a seeing that something is green, and the other merely
as a case of something's looking green" (Sellars 1963, 145).
The only difference is epistemic: in one the content of the
experience is endorsed, and in the other it is not.
"It looks green" might also be phrased "Visually it is just
as if I were seeing something green, but I do not endorse the
claim that it is green". I am visually representing something
to be green, but I do not endorse that representation.

The interesting implication is that reports in the epistemic
sense of "that looks green" are themselves reports of a higher
order thought. Unlike reports of the form "that is green", a
report "that looks green" expresses a thought about one's own
mental state. Suppose it means "I am in the sensory state that
would normally lead me to judge that thing to be green, but
something is amiss, and I wish to withhold judgement". It
follows that to be in a state in which something looks green
to me, I must be in a state whose content is "I am in a sensory
state that would normally lead me to judge that thing to be
green, but something is amiss, and I wish to withhold
judgement." This content includes a higher-order comment about
one's own visual state: that it is of a kind that would
normally lead me to judge the thing in question to be green.
Or: that I am in the same kind of visual state that I would
be in if the thing causing it were green."

SH: This "higher-order comment" would appear to dispute Ned Block's
claim that qualia included thought. I notice that Rosenberg distances
[edit: I mean this sounds more like a-consciousness than p-consciousness.]
himself from Block's position in chapter 3. I am not so sure this impacts
Gregg's argument; more like 'what is it like to see red' is not well-defined.

 

[cyberdiction]

Just a question relevant to this discussion. Does Rosenberg discuss blindsight at all? This seems an example of perception that the perceivers are not conscious of. I know that this is a much discussed phenomenon in consciousness research.

SH: Thanks for the hint. This is what Rosenberg says:

APFC.pdf Rosenberg, page 77

"While Liberal Naturalism might feel liberating, we have too much
freedom. To find a place for consciousness, we need tests for the
minimal adequacy of proposed explanations, and also a class of
problems able to provide clues that help us triangulate to the
point of fundamental incompleteness in our knowledge. As a
beginning for the effort, I wish to step back to examine
assumptions and to try to identify the deepest problems and clues
in the vicinity. ...

For example, the links between conscious experience, voluntary
action and functional awareness lead to very interesting puzzles
when considering multiple personality cases (Braude1991), or
commissurotomy patients (Marks 1981) or blindsight patients
(Weiskrantz, 1986; 1988). These puzzle cases can be very seductive,
philosophically, but if Liberal Naturalism is correct they are
likely more intriguing than they are fundamental. Were we to focus
exclusively on overtly cognitive features of consciousness like
these, we would run the danger of confusing the inessential with
the essential, and overlooking promising paths in our search."
-------------------------------------------------------------

GR: "These puzzle cases can be very seductive, philosophically, but if
Liberal Naturalism is correct they are likely more intriguing than they are
fundamental."

SH: I think this should be argued that these cases are intriguing rather
than fundamental, thus Liberal Naturalism is correct.

I find there is disupte about whether there are instances of P-Consciousness
without A-Consciousness or vice versa, but usually both occur. (Ned Block)

Or Chalmers:
Chalmers claims that a clear conceptual distinction can be made
between access and phenomenal consciousness when one considers the
fact that we can imagine P-Consciousness without A-Consciousness
and A-Consciousness without P-Consciousness, and the fact that
A-Consciousness can be accounted for by cognitivist explanations
while P-Consciousness is resistant to such explanations. Unlike
Block, however, Chalmers believes that A-Consciousness and
P-Consciousness *always* occur together.

Or Block again:
http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/neural_block.htm
"Although phenomenal-consciousness and access-consciousness differ
conceptually (as do the concepts of water and H_2O), we don’t know
yet whether or not they really come to the same thing in the brain."

http://www.def-logic.com/articles/silby011.html

"Blindsight is a well documented phenomenon that occurs in people
who have suffered damage to certain areas of their visual cortex.
These people have a blind region in their visual field, and though
they are aware of their blind spot, they cannot see anything that
is presented to them in that area of space. The important feature
of blindsight is that although subjects are unaware of stimuli in
their blind spots, they have an uncanny ability to `guess' as to
the location, motion and direction of such stimuli. In these cases
their appears to be some visual awareness without the phenomenal
properties that normally occur with visual awareness. For Block,
cases of blindsight point to instances of absent P-consciousness.
Block cannot say, however, that these people have A-consciousness
of the stimuli in their blind region, because the content of the
blind region is not available for the rational control of action.
Blindsight patients must be prompted by an experimenter before
they will `take a guess'. It is unlikely that a hungry blindsight
patient would spontaneously reach for a chocolate in his blind
region. But, says Block, imagine a super-blindsighter who had
acquired the ability to guess when to guess about the content of
her blind field. Even though she doesn't see the objects in her
blind field, she can spontaneously offer verbal reports about
those objects. Information about her blind field just spring into
her thoughts. A super-blindsighter would be A-conscious but not
P-conscious. Whether there are any super-blindsighters is an
empirical question that has not been answered yet, but this does
not affect Block's point. It is enough for Block that they are
conceptually possible. To emphasize this conceptual possibility,
Block points to evidence that the human visual system is divided
into two separate subsystems - the ventral and dorsal subsystems.
In blindsight there seems to be damage to the ventral system,
which Block claims is closely connected to P-Consciousness.

The ventral system is responsible for object recognition and
classification, while the dorsal system is involved in computing
spatial features such as location and motion. Block believes that
because the visual system is comprised of these two visual
subsystems, it would also be conceptually possible to find cases
of P-Consciousness without A-Consciousness. This might occur if
someone incurred damage to their dorsal system, while their
ventral system remained intact. Of course, if Block's distinction
is accurate, we would probably not know if someone was P-Conscious
of events in their visual field without being A-Conscious of those
events because a lack of A-Consciousness implies that content is
not poised for the control of behavior. This includes behavior
such as making the statement: "I see a red object."

 

[Tsunami]

Hi,

I just started reading into this discussion, and have read these first 4 pages regarding the first chapter. I've no own background on this subject, just a very w(a/o)ndering mind.

If this drifts too far from the book discussion, do say so.

1. Regarding blind sight:

I believe Pinker defines two aspects of mind, namely sensation and perception. Is there any difference between p-consciousness and sensation, or a-consciousness and perception?
In any case, I think the plausible explanation of blind sight is that to make a conscious effort, your p-consciousness needs to be triggered, however, it's your a-consciousness that performs the mental functions. Therefore, if your p-consciousness is triggered by alternative means (ie. the experimenter giving a verbal cue), you can still perform the mental function.

2. I fail to see why distinguishing between representational consciousness and non-representational consciousness is a good idea. I'm reading Gombrich's Art and Illusion, and it illustrates that our way of representing experiences is something that we learn, something that is a gradual process. I think it's very misleading to describe this representation as if it's an independent, or an at least in some way isolatable aspect of our consciousness. That is, I don't see how this is a process which needs any kind of special institution. I think it's far more likely that representation is just a different way of catagorising experiental data. But of course, these objections might be solved further on. My apologies if this is the case, I've some serious catching up to do.

 

[hypnagogue]

1. Regarding blind sight:

I believe Pinker defines two aspects of mind, namely sensation and perception. Is there any difference between p-consciousness and sensation, or a-consciousness and perception?

I don't know if Pinker has any idiosyncratic uses for those terms, but in general sensation just refers to the detection of environmental information by the senses, whereas perception involves integrating that sensory information into a coherent model of the environment. So sensation per se isn't really an aspect of consciousness itself, but rather a link in the flow of information from the world to the mind. Perception need not be conscious (e.g. as in subliminal perception), but when perception is conscious we can say it usually involves both p-consciousness (what the experience of perception is like, phenomenologically) and a-consciousness (being able to use the perceptual information to guide thought and behavior).

In any case, I think the plausible explanation of blind sight is that to make a conscious effort, your p-consciousness needs to be triggered, however, it's your a-consciousness that performs the mental functions. Therefore, if your p-consciousness is triggered by alternative means (ie. the experimenter giving a verbal cue), you can still perform the mental function.

Not sure exactly what you mean here. But in general, if you're talking about something in consciousness needing to be triggered in order to do something else, you're probably talking about its access-consciousness aspect.

2. I fail to see why distinguishing between representational consciousness and non-representational consciousness is a good idea. I'm reading Gombrich's Art and Illusion, and it illustrates that our way of representing experiences is something that we learn, something that is a gradual process. I think it's very misleading to describe this representation as if it's an independent, or an at least in some way isolatable aspect of our consciousness. That is, I don't see how this is a process which needs any kind of special institution. I think it's far more likely that representation is just a different way of catagorising experiental data. But of course, these objections might be solved further on. My apologies if this is the case, I've some serious catching up to do.

Again, not quite sure if I catch you exactly-- you may be using the word "representation" differently than it's being used here. The issue of representation was only brought up briefly in this chapter to paranthetically address representationalist theories of consciousness.