Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

[Papus79]

Yes, I'm exploring everything I can get me hands on basically.

We might have some of the same aggregators.

I tend to bounce between Curt Jaimungal's TheoriesOfEverything and Brian Keating's channel. Rebel Wisdom and Stoa can be good when they have Daniel Schmachtenberger, Samo Burja, Jordan Hall, or Jamie Wheal on, and there are some others in that complexity and sense-making space who are interesting as well.

The TOE, exploration of physics, and political GameB spaces all seem to hold a lot of interesting material and in particular I'm really hoping that GameB makes some serious headway in terms of dreaming up smarter regulation that's a lot less blunt than waiting until Google and Facebook eat everything to ask 'should we give them the old early 20th century trust-busting?' (IMHO wrong response and way too late).

[GE Morton]

Recent research indicates that conscious and the unconscious processes do not usually operate in opposition. They are not competitors wrestling for hegemony over our psyche. They are not even separate spheres, as Freud’s later classification into the ego, id and superego would suggest. Rather there is only one mind in which conscious and unconscious strands are interwoven. In fact, even our most reasonable thoughts and actions mainly result from automatic, unconscious processes. - Link.

We suggest that our personal awareness does not create, cause or choose our beliefs, feelings or perceptions. Instead, the contents of consciousness are generated “behind the scenes” by fast, efficient, non-conscious systems in our brains. All this happens without any interference from our personal awareness, which sits passively in the passenger seat while these processes occur.

Put simply, we don’t consciously choose our thoughts or our feelings – we become aware of them. - Link.

I fully agree with your second quote, which makes no mention of "unconscious mind." The first does, but it appears to be a popularized account.

I think we probably agree on the substance here; it's just an issue of preferred terminology.

[GE Morton]

If you posit something similar happening in the brain, then it could only be that the brain is preparing this model/copy so that it can be subsequently observed. And guess what--we're right back where we started, because now the problem of "How does the brain perceive its visual environment" has been replaced by "How does the inner observer in the brain perceive the model of the environment the brain just created for it?".

I.e., the "homunculus" in the "Cartesian Theater." Per Metzinger's theory, the phenomenal self-model is the observer, which receives information via the phenomenal world model.

[GE Morton]

Failing an Einsteinian breakthrough, solving the hard problem would seem a matter of continually comparing reported brain states with recorded brain states, and then see if a broader understanding emerges from the data.

That can't work. First, the subject can't report brain states; he can only report "mind states." I.e., he can report, "I am sad," or, "I see a red square," but he can't report what being sad feels like to him, or what red looks like to him --- but they are distinct feelings and sensations. The Hard Problem is, "Why do those neural events "feel" like anything at all?

[Pattern-chaser]

Recent research indicates that conscious and the unconscious processes do not usually operate in opposition. They are not competitors wrestling for hegemony over our psyche. They are not even separate spheres, as Freud’s later classification into the ego, id and superego would suggest. Rather there is only one mind in which conscious and unconscious strands are interwoven. In fact, even our most reasonable thoughts and actions mainly result from automatic, unconscious processes. - Link.

We suggest that our personal awareness does not create, cause or choose our beliefs, feelings or perceptions. Instead, the contents of consciousness are generated “behind the scenes” by fast, efficient, non-conscious systems in our brains. All this happens without any interference from our personal awareness, which sits passively in the passenger seat while these processes occur.

Put simply, we don’t consciously choose our thoughts or our feelings – we become aware of them. - Link.

I fully agree with your second quote, which makes no mention of "unconscious mind."

Really?

[John_Jacquard]

Yes, I'm exploring everything I can get me hands on basically.

We might have some of the same aggregators.

I tend to bounce between Curt Jaimungal's TheoriesOfEverything and Brian Keating's channel. Rebel Wisdom and Stoa can be good when they have Daniel Schmachtenberger, Samo Burja, Jordan Hall, or Jamie Wheal on, and there are some others in that complexity and sense-making space who are interesting as well.

The TOE, exploration of physics, and political GameB spaces all seem to hold a lot of interesting material and in particular I'm really hoping that GameB makes some serious headway in terms of dreaming up smarter regulation that's a lot less blunt than waiting until Google and Facebook eat everything to ask 'should we give them the old early 20th century trust-busting?' (IMHO wrong response and way too late).

Absolutely, I agree with that .
I am interested in exploring anything intelligible.
And also I'm my own work I'm interested in more abstract representation.
For instance in my interdisciplinary information systems theory work.
There is a abstract level of detail .
A relationship between a computational toe and geometric toe .
There are these metaphor abstract symbols and patterns a set of relationships between them which seem to occur that exact way independent of the scope of reality or its scale of detail.
But , why should that be the case ?

( IF physicalism and materialism are the best approximations )
There seems to be no grounds for metaphor being so prominent in the structure of reality if the scientific pursuit of materialism and physicalism ( although incomplete) are the best models of reality .

( in terms of differentiating between reality and imagination or fantasy each moment of existence in our thought process )

I'll make one point of this.

In the musical framework of 12 tone equal temperament.
You have 12 equal spaced notes .
( arbitrary which exact hz each note is even though A =440hz in culture )

Now this is the initial conditions 12 equal spaced notes
( like a clock on a wall )
And many octaves repeating after the 12th note .

We have our initial conditions .

Now there are 4 distinct languages in 12 tone e.t.
Tonal music language ( functional harmony)
Modal music language
Polytonal music language
Atonal music language.

Each one of these languages has a different deep level of meaning , they work entirely different way .

Yet these 4 languages express every possibility of what can be done with harmony in 12 tone e.t.

Finally, within each distinct language ( which has its own deep level of meaning that all surface level is based on)
There are specific vertices where all 4 languages connect into one unifying fractal , or holographic harmony .

Now , mapping out all the relationships of symbol representing a pattern of information of meaning for each language ,
( reductionism)
Then subsequently connecting the relationships of each language to the vertices of the others into one unified
Fractal harmony ( holism)

Creates an entire framework which describes
( in full specificity )
Every possibility.

Meaning , full meaningful explanation of every 12 tone et song which has ever been written or that can ever be written in the future. ( * only within the 12 tone e t. System )

[ a combination of a full computational model and geometric model as one unified toe of 12 tone e.t.

Here is the significance though .

Getting into the very specifics of the information ,
The surface level structures ( symbols )
Representation a pattern of information ( meaning and purpose )
Through the use of free will .

All these structures and relationships found within this context.
Are the same structures and relationships which work the same way in every context of reality and scale of detail of reality .

Meaning there 3 levels of detail .
The abstract
The specific
The possibilities

I'm still working in this area in terms demonstrable information.
Creativity through free will is at the heart of all of this .
( free will meaning a function of the context )
Because you have the computational and geometric full models that maps out every possibility .

However, the way the information manifests itself ,
( for example in a specific song )

You have all the possibilities ( which are reality)
You have all the computational and geometric information
Then using freewill you create a boundary of space time
Meaning creation of specific music a song a melody .
You are using three components .

Harmony ( which is the information above the blueprint)
Melody
Rhythm

Creating a boundary of spacetime and using Rhythm
( placement of a specific note in a place at a specific time for a duration ( in multiple dimensions because its not just a sequence of single notes )

Combination of three main elements

Harmony
Melody
Rhythm

By using free will to create a specific ( actual song)
You are plucking out of every possibility a intentional creation.

All these relationships and functions exist at every situation of reality and at all scales of detail .

Why should that be the case?
Because ( in the scope of this comment and example )

" Music ' is a specific type of simulation of reality .

[Sy Borg]

Failing an Einsteinian breakthrough, solving the hard problem would seem a matter of continually comparing reported brain states with recorded brain states, and then see if a broader understanding emerges from the data.

That can't work. First, the subject can't report brain states; he can only report "mind states." I.e., he can report, "I am sad," or, "I see a red square," but he can't report what being sad feels like to him, or what red looks like to him --- but they are distinct feelings and sensations. The Hard Problem is, "Why do those neural events "feel" like anything at all?

As I say, there is no point trying to solve this in one fell swoop, just as the missing link problem wasn't solved all at once. Ideally, the hard problem is approached from both directions - objective measurement and subjective reporting. The idea would be to collect as many correlations as possible, which will in time include more complex reports, such as those of emotions and sensations.

After enough data has been gathered it should become increasingly possible to predict the brain states induced by novel stimuli, or at least determine probabilities. Further, I think the deeper question, such as why anything is felt at all, may become more approachable with more information about the relationship between brain states and subjective reports.

[Papus79]

" Music ' is a specific type of simulation of reality .

I had a thread about the contents of music, and in particular it gets strong when it smashes archetypal themes.

Are you familiar with Forrest Landry's IDM (Imminent Metaphysics)? If so you might find some things in there that'll ring a bell with what you're talking about. He gets into the idea of triple isomorphism, three modalities, and that they all interrelate back to each other (his contents are the immanent, the transcendent, and the omniscient).

I didn't feel like a lot of the examples in the appendix did much for me but he had some examples that made some sense in terms of how these branch off of each other (such as software vs. hardware or a person looking at a picture). What I did like is that he firmly landed his sense on how something, like consciousness, could interact with things if it didn't at least 'seem' to have causal power from a materialist perspective.

The other thing you might run into with this sort of thing if you haven't already is a lot of the symptoms of what people have historically called 'spiritual awakening', ie. when you get a sense that energies or at least endocrine / neurochemical flows are doing unusual things (like heat coming from the base of your spine and all of that). This kind of philosophy as I remember, ie. examining cross-domain relationships and particularly with reference to symbol and number, is something the early Kabbalists used to do and the more traditional Rosicrucian orders (as well as Martinists and Anthroposophists) work with this kind of thing a lot as well, so I can see why it would work out that way.

I have The Magician as my avatar partly because I want to get things done in life but I also spent about five years studying tarot with Builders of The Adytum, and I think one of the most interesting takeaways from that is how symbols can be used in a modular fashion and brought to your service is really crafting your own software (Robert Kegan's 'self-authoring' at an accelerated level).

[GE Morton]

Further, I think the deeper question, such as why anything is felt at all, may become more approachable with more information about the relationship between brain states and subjective reports.

That, I fear, like the question, "Why does anything exist?", is a bridge impossible (in principle) to cross, due to the barriers mentioned previously.

[Sy Borg]

Further, I think the deeper question, such as why anything is felt at all, may become more approachable with more information about the relationship between brain states and subjective reports.

That, I fear, like the question, "Why does anything exist?", is a bridge impossible (in principle) to cross, due to the barriers mentioned previously.

Generally, the answer to "why" question lies in preconditions that are conducive to the emergence or manifestation of the phenomenon in question.

"Why does anything exist?" is ground zero but, since everything has a precondition (as far as we know) then reality as we know it had a precondition, which ultimately leads to infinite regress. So, logically, there has always been something and our current reality is our particular something.

With the ultimate existential question now sorted out (haha), we can think of consciousness - subjectivity - as phenomena that either emerged from preconditions or has always been. Given the difficult most of us have in imagining subjectivity in a young universe full of radiation, plasma and dust, we figure it's emergent.

If it emerged, then it emerged from something rather like it, but that "something" would lack the key distinguishing qualities of the phenomenon. My guess is reflexes, like the responses of microbes, eg. spasming or writhing when bitten. We spasm and writhe when bitten too - but not necessarily. New layers are added to this basic "subroutine" that might go like this:

IF Attacker = a, b or c (species) THEN Retreat
IF Bite Force > 𝑥 THEN Retreat
IF Bite Force ≤ 𝑥 THEN Fight Back

In mammals there would be many, many steps. The "Retreat" subroutine itself has many options for intelligent animals - up a tree, behind a tree, which tree - or bush?, and so on. Do you retreat slowly, facing the attacker as one would with a bear or wild dogs or would you bolt, as one might if facing an aggressive snake, crocodile or large monitor. How far do you retreat? What terrain and distance do you feel you can handle?

A human trained in combat arts might have many more options, including being able to override impulses and reflexes that reduce control.

As these layers build, what we think of sentience emerges over millions of years. I agree that the evolved complexity of nervous systems in deep time results in forbiddingly multi-layered systems, almost insolubly convoluted. All researchers can do is chip away and build up the body of knowledge and see what might pop out of the data.

[PoeticUniverse]

"Why does anything exist?" is ground zero but, since everything has a precondition (as far as we know) then reality as we know it had a precondition, which ultimately leads to infinite regress. So, logically, there has always been something and our current reality is our particular something.

With the ultimate existential question now sorted out (haha),

Ah, yes; here it is:

https://www.onlinephilosophyclub.com/fo ... 59#p395959

[Consul]

...could this be because the brain generates and maintains the mind, but that most of the mind is not involved in/with the 'conscious mind' or consciousness? Most of our minds are non-conscious; the conscious mind is just one part of a whole mind.

What is the difference between a nonconscious mental event in or state of the brain and a nonconscious nonmental one?

[Consul]

"Subconscious mind" is an odd term popularized (coined?) by Freud. It's a bit oxymoronic, and I'm not sure how much utility it has. I think most neuroscientists restrict "mind" to conscious processes, and consider the many non-conscious processes going on in the brain just as physiology (the conscious processes depend upon that physiology, of course).

Actually, the mind according to cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience comprises both conscious processes and nonconscious ones. However, there is the basic question of the scope of the concept of a mind or mentality. Conscious (experiential) processes are surely mental ones (which is not to say that they are irreducibly nonphysical!), but what is still mental about nonconscious processes in the brain? What is and makes the difference between the nonconscious mental and the nonconscious nonmental? For example, so-called propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires are usually regarded as nonconscious mental states, but what exactly is distinctively mental about them when there is nothing experiential about them?
Of course, from the materialistic perspective, the psychology of the mind—be it the conscious mind or the nonconscious mind—is nothing over and above the (neuro)physiology of the brain.

QUOTE>
"Conscious and Unconscious Processes Together Form the Bases of Our Mental Processes

As Bernard Baars has written, “Consciousness is the water in which we swim. Like fish in the ocean, we can’t jump out to see how it looks from the outside. As soon as we lose consciousness, we can no longer see anything.” We are well aware of our conscious selves. We can report on what is occurring right now as we experience an event or taste a food. Our knowledge of what is occurring moment by moment of our conscious life—the contents of our consciousness—forms the base of our awareness. Fluid, flexible, ever-changing contents of our consciousness seem to be a vast sea in which we swim.

Careful experimentation has time and time again proven this feeling to be false. In fact, the contents of our consciousness are quite limited. At any given time, only so much information, so many senses, feelings, and thoughts, can share the mind-space of our consciousness. More and more evidence is providing support for the notion that it is our unconscious processing that forms the overwhelming majority of brain functions. Our vast store of memories, language knowledge, automaticities, and procedural learning combine to form the largely unconscious but accessible if recalled storage of what we have learned and experienced throughout our life. …[T]his information is retrievable, in large part, and forms the bulk of the iceberg of our knowledge store. Conscious contents, at any given moment, form merely the tip of this massive iceberg.

Conscious and unconscious threads together form the thoughts and ideas and actions on any given day. We may be reading a book and thinking consciously about the topic of the book while keeping an eye on the time so we are not late for work. At the same time that these conscious processes enter and recede from the contents of our consciousness, largely unconscious processes are also at work outside our attention or our influence. If we are skilled readers, the process of reading the book—decoding the shapes of the print to form letters, decoding the strings of letters for form words, parsing the sequence of words to form sentences and so on—is not something we are usually conscious of. Similarly, we may be walking around the room while reading the book—the act of walking is an overlearned process and so the individual motor movements and balance required are largely automatic. Together the conscious, task-based activities of our lives combine with their unconscious and automatic elements to help us achieve our goals, large and small."
(p. 6)

"Waking cognition is woven of both conscious and unconscious threads, constantly weaving back and forth. For example, the process of reading these words is only partly conscious. You are a highly practiced reader, and you have learned over many hours of practice to automatically convert these tiny marks on paper into your own inner speech and then into unconscious processes like word recognition, grammar, and meaning."
(p. 255)

(Gage, Nicole M., and Bernard J. Baars. Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press/Elsevier, 2018.)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

…For example, so-called propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires are usually regarded as nonconscious mental states, but what exactly is distinctively mental about them when there is nothing experiential about them?

I should mention that philosophers and psychologists have drawn a distinction between nonconscious, "dispositional" propositional attitudes and conscious, "occurrent" propositional attitudes or propositional-attitude experiences. But I and others think that there are no such kinds of experiences as belief-experiences or desire-experiences, but only experiential expressions or indications of propositional attitudes in the form of conscious episodes of inner speech such as one's thinking of the sentence "I believe/desire that p".

[Consul]

…As these layers build, what we think of sentience emerges over millions of years. I agree that the evolved complexity of nervous systems in deep time results in forbiddingly multi-layered systems, almost insolubly convoluted. All researchers can do is chip away and build up the body of knowledge and see what might pop out of the data.

One meaning of "to internalize" is "to give an inward or subjective character to" (Oxford Dictionary of English), and the evolutionary "emergence" of sentience results from the neurodynamic construction of a novel layer or level of internal processing of sensory information: conscious/experiential processing.