A physicalists view of panprotoexperientialism

[Pineal]

Words are not the native language of the mind. Imagery is. So when I conceptualize some physical entity or interaction between entities I am not writing out a description on some virtual white board (although I could do that), I am forming virtual visual representations. It is only when I try to convey what I've constructed that I have to deal with the challenge of accurately translating it all into words.

I agree. Or at least this seems to be how my mind works. I would add that there are often feelings present also. I do not mean blunt feelings like anger, but more nuanced feels. At least this is what I found when I studied the phenomenology of language.

These images are the experiences we have. I think they are the meanings.

These images relate to our specific and even individual idiosyncratic visual systems and predilections. The are embodied in this sense, specific to us as limited, subjective animal experiencers experiencing at specific moments in unfolding time.

As for your point about empiricism, I'm not sure I understand precisely what you're getting at. I will say however, that even though I believe that electrons actually do exist, the visual representation I have of an electron in my mind is very fuzzy and as such probably does not correspond very well to reality.

Well, the electron is probably in superposition. and thus your representation is as accurate as a subjective primate can get.

I mean, you could visualize an electron as a tiny sphere orbiting the nucleus of an atom in much the same way a planet orbits a star (as one might see in some basic physics textbook) but that's not at all accurate.

agreed.

In fact at such scales, where quantum effects dominate, it would be a critical mistake to imagine things operating in anything even resembling a classical manner. It is, rather, a seething foam of probability, entanglement, non-locality and indeterminacy, and as such any picture I form in my mind is bound to be terribly inaccurate. Thankfully, however, we've been able to use an array of useful tools to make better sense of what we can't directly see, or imagine very well.

Or interact with and supply the math for.

I'm something of a pantheist myself (of the naturalistic, or monist physicalist variety, for the most part).

You were the one with the kind of elemental, protoconsciousness in all matter if I remember right.

You and I both know what the basic properties of a tennis ball are. In a very short time we could easily establish what it is that we are talking about without referencing it by name (or even without speaking at all, assuming we had some paper and a box of crayons, or were particularly good at charades). This is in spite of the fact that neither of us would have a perfect conception of it in our minds, and that any conception we did have would necessarily be tainted somewhat by our own subjectivity.

I used the term tainted, but really it is more like we can only conceive of tennis balls as they are to us. We being the kinds of physical creatures we are and also creatures that move through time the way we do. We have vantages and conceptions based on our bodies and embodiment in space and time. I would like to restress that I am not denying external reality. I am playing a devil's advocate, role playing a strict empiricist.

Again, I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. Again, ultimately I believe that an entity is what it is regardless of the accuracy of our conception of it.

I do too, that doesn't mean our conceptions, words or understanding or experience of it - what the empiricist has - allows one to speak about it objectively. we can accurately speak about it in consensus terms - what an embodied creature like us will experience, but that is not objective.

I don't think that the problem is establishing where a conception ends and reality begins, but rather with establishing the accuracy of a particular conception of the real nature of other entities. Such considerations follow the establishment of a foundational premise such as 'an external world exists independently of my own mind'.

For an empiricist that foundation only functions as a model, it doesn't mean that what is said/conceived/written is about the ding an sich. It just means that the empiricist believes there is one. All the merged subject object issues in perception and conception remain.

But I think I have taken enough time on this tangent. I would like to restress that even in my role playing the strict empiricist at no point am I denying the 'world out there'. The strict empiricist need not do that. However they must be extremely skeptical of any model/conception being purely about the ding an sich. All such a person has is experiences which are a merger.

 

[Rav]

You were the one with the kind of elemental, protoconsciousness in all matter if I remember right.

Actually, I had pantheistic tendencies even before formulating this tentative little philosophical position of mine (and even before I knew what the term meant). But it's certainly compatible, if not an enhancement of such.

About the term 'protoconsciousness' though, no-one realizes more than me just how difficult it is to properly articulate the position I have been arguing for in this thread, so I know you're just kind of trying to find a reasonable approximation of it with your characterization. But my position is actually such that I would say that matter contains 'protoconsciousness' about as much as it contains 'proto-star-ness'.

 

[Pineal]

Actually, I had pantheistic tendencies even before formulating this tentative little philosophical position of mine (and even before I knew what the term meant). But it's certainly compatible, if not an enhancement of such.

About the term 'protoconsciousness' though, no-one realizes more than me just how difficult it is to properly articulate the position I have been arguing for in this thread, so I know you're just kind of trying to find a reasonable approximation of it with your characterization. But my position is actually such that I would say that matter contains 'protoconsciousness' about as much as it contains 'proto-star-ness'.

Ah, ok, that is not what I would call protoconsciousness. I would say a star has way too many emergent properties for quarks or whatever to be call protostars.

 

[Cyperium]

I'm not suggesting that there is any sort of dualism inherent in a physical entity; that an electron, for example, has some sort of unphysical essence attached to it. If I was saying that I'd simply be recreating the very problem I am trying to address, albeit at a much smaller scale.

In Techne's most recent thread on Matter, Intentionality, Epiphenomenalism and the Interaction Problem, I mused:



What I was essentially driving at there is the distinction between a collection of properties we assign to a physical entity, and the physical entity itself. If the properties that we assign to a physical entity are all that exist, then there would be no difference between something like an electron that exists in nature and an electron that exists in a computer simulation of nature. No, I believe that the entities that we assign properties to have substance, and what I am suggesting is that that substance is not only a precursor to physical manifestations such as stars and planets, but that it is also the precursor to things such as cognition and conscious awareness.

You explained that very well and I agree with you 100%. No matter how well we describe something, it isn't that in it's own right, only in reality itself is it what it is in it's own right. I would think that it has to do with existence itself, that there is something to exist. That the existence of something doesn't come about only because of somethings properties, but because of some underlying order of existence. There has to be some kind of order to what is allowed to exist, and why some things can't exist. As it is now anything could exist, according to our theories of the world, because we can't describe what is allowed to exist, and what is not, and we have only the smallest idea of how something can exist at all, and what upholds that existence. Perhaps truth? Truth is after all the underlying concept of both the imaginary and the real, the physical and the mental. As I see it anyway.

But remember that I am not assigning features such as cognition and conscious awareness to a quanta of physicality, much as I am not assigning the features of a star or a planet to such.

I think I understand that now, but as such I don't feel that you are in opposition anymore with my views. I would also think that both the physical and the mental ultimately stem from the same source. Which may be of a different nature from both the physical or the mental, but we can't know that for sure as it stands right now.

What you seem to be getting at is something much like epiphenomenalism. But you still have the problem of explaining how physical activity in the brain can cause mental states. In other words, how does the release of certain chemicals in the brain translate into the 'experience' of an emotion. There still has to be a chain of cause an effect, therefore you still have an interaction problem.

There is no intermediate state between the physical and the experience. The brain has meaning, we know that it has because all the activities happening results in our thoughts, emotions and experiences. Therefor the activities has meaning and isn't just jibberish and I think that this meaning has to be represented as well as something real (since it is real that the activities mean more than simply the activities themselves).

Our thoughts/emotions/experiences are simply that meaning manifested in it's own reality. I truly believe that there is a reality for everything, and if there is a lump of matter that within it has processes resulting in meaning of some kind, then that will be manifested somewhere (the entire reality of it won't just be neurons firing anymore but must also encompass the meaning that those activities make).

There's another side to it also, the meaning wouldn't be fulfilled if there wasn't awareness of it. The meaning could be manifested in a reality, but if no identity is aware of it then it still wouldn't mean anything (meaning is subjective and therefor needs a subject). So in order for the meaning to have a reality (which it has since the processes has meaning) it also has to have a identity that is aware of it.


So this is how I think it works:

Activities in the brain ---> Activities have meaning ---> Meaning becomes real ---> In order for meaning to be real it needs someone who is aware of it.

As such, I believe that we (as necessary for awareness) are extracted (from something, or nothing) because of necessity to make the meaning that the activities make real.

Reality needs awareness. In fact, I think that existence itself is awareness. At least that is the only existence that we truly know anything about (our own existence that is, which is our awareness, which without we wouldn't exist).

I have the fullest sympathy if you couldn't follow me to the end on this, I had a hard time following myself to the end of this, but I'm eager to explain this in more detail and perhaps in better wording if you want to or have objections.

 

[Big Chiller]

Wouldn't that be the less philosophical view of physical and the more philosophical view being that something has quantities such as size.

I don't know what these qualities are. Volume is the best quality you've come up with, though I am not sure we can say some fields have a size if we cannot measure it. I also wonder about particles in superposition, if they have volumes. Or quarks for that matter. I read somewhere that they were below the current ability to measure in volume so the issue is not decided.

Sorry, it's not the philosophical meaning of physical that has been retained over centuries rather the mathematical meaning of physical. Photons are still physical because they have quanta and the mathematical part of being physical is referring to quantities such as volume or length though we can't interact with electromagnetic fields as we can with matter. It may be difficult to measure the volume of fundamental particles but we can still measure them they have something called 'cross section'. As for particles in superposition we may never be able to observe them so I wouldn't jump into any conclusion about them.

 

[Pineal]

Sorry, it's not the philosophical meaning of physical that has been retained over centuries rather the mathematical meaning of physical. Photons are still physical because they have quanta and the mathematical part of being physical is referring to quantities such as volume or length though we can't interact with electromagnetic fields as we can with matter. It may be difficult to measure the volume of fundamental particles but we can still measure them they have something called 'cross section'. As for particles in superposition we may never be able to observe them so I wouldn't jump into any conclusion about them.

Interesting! And just to be clear, I am not arguing these various 'things' are not physical, just about - to put it the least controversially I can - likely no longer means what most lay people think it means in all cases. And this newer, broader meaning may also evolve.