1Z wrote:
On 8/13/06, 1Z <peterdjones.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > but as I say, I can't help 'taking
> > personally' the existent thing from which I and all persons are
> > emanating. I think, imaginatvely, that if one pictures a 'block
> > universe', Platonia, MW, or any non-process conception of reality, this
> > is more intuitive,
>
> I don't see why it should be. It does not conform to our
> experience.
> > because everything is 'just there' - superposed, as
> > it were. So, sure there's a 'layer' at which the individual 1st-person
> > 'emerges', but it's taking everything else 'working together' to
> > manifest it. So in this sense, for me, it's all 'personal'. But maybe
> > not for you.
This business of what 'conforms to our experience' I think is fairly
deep. I used to be adamant that, whether or not 'timeless' theories
could be shown to be true or false on any other grounds, that they
simply didn't 'conform to our experience'. I was, however, also
suspicious of my own doubts: after all, we can't feel the earth moving,
and everyone knows you need to keep pushing things or otherwise they
grind to a halt. So I tried to go on an imaginative journey that might
take me into this apparently static realm but nevertheless preserve
something like 'what we experience'.
In my mind's eye I placed myself in the various 'points of view' that
'timelessly' exist within these structures. What would I see? Well,
whatever was manifested to me in virtue of 'my' local capabilities and
the perceptual information available to this 'me'. Would these
experiences be discrete, or would they be overlaid or 'smeared' with
information from other perspectives? Well, it seemed to me that what is
characteristic about our experience, what makes it seem 'sequential',
is precisely what we *can no longer* or *can't yet* see, the
information we *don't* have access to. And so despite the 'superposed'
existence of these other states, delimitations of access to information
would act to make each capsule discrete. All the capsules capable of it
are 'conscious', but the localisation of information prevents there
being a 'totalising' point of view.
The next puzzle for me was why any of this would 'feel' dynamic. This
IMO is a subset of the qualia issue - i.e. why does anything feel
anyhow? Now, given that the arena under consideration consists in a
both a 'substrate' and the structures within it, it has both
distributed and all-at-once aspects. Could it not be the the dynamic
temporal 'feel' is the tension between these two? All dynamism derives
from contrast, and this seems to offer it. Putting these elements
together (over a period of time involving many 'thought voyages') has
re-aligned my intuition to make the scenario seem more plausible, at
least experientially.
Finally we come to the question of all these 'mes'. They all exist, and
they're all conscious (the ones that are, that is). What's different
about the other parts of the structure? Why aren't *they* conscious?
They're just organised differently, just like the parts *within*
persons that aren't conscious (ever), or the part that just went to
sleep, or died. So the whole structure, reflexively, *to itself*, is
manifesting consciously, unconsciously, and no doubt every nuance in
between and beyond. That's my capital-P Personal. I strongly suspect
that you find this way of thinking uncongenial, which is absolutely
fine by me. But I've tried to describe it as clearly as I can, and
perhaps we can do no better than leave it at that.
> That isn't at all clear to me - mainly because you
> are nto makign the all-improtant distinction between
> structures-structures and qualia-structures.
The qualia-structures are the fact of *being* the differentiated
substrate, and they manifest as 'feel', as distinct from 'possessing
properties'. The structure-structures are the observed relations
derived from these experiences, which also give us our relational or
'property' view of things.
Why is it not possible that *being* a substrate differentiated in a
particular way just *feels like* a particular existential/ experiential
quality to the differentiated substrate in question? I find the choice
of vocabulary here almost impossible, because it's not the sort of
thing we're used to trying to communicate. But we're trying to
comprehend a sort of reflexivity, a 'seeming-to-itself'. How would you
prefer to characterise it? Is it critical to your conception that
qualia are individual irreducible 'feels' and are subjectively neither
analysable or synthesisable even to the 'feeler'? I feel that we're
getting to the point here where the problem stems from interpreting our
personal experience in characteristically different ways, and this may
simply be irreconcilable. As you say:
> I disagree. I can discern no structure *within* the taste
> of lemon or the colour red. There are relations between
> tastes, colours and so on, but they underdiefine the tastes
> and colurs themselves.
I agree about the underdefinition, but beyond this can one really
debate something so personal as what one can 'discern'? I can't think
of any further argument to advance this here, so "Wovon man nicht
sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen".
At this stage, and attempting to recall our various points of
departure, are you able to summarise what substantive areas of dispute
may remain that do not boil down to imaginative or linguistic
preference? I mean this genuinely, not rhetorically. I have discovered
many points of agreement in thinking about your interesting
presentation of your views, and your pointed questions to this juncture
have been most helpful in getting me to formulate justifications with
as much precision as I can. I'm only sorry I don't do better, but words
often fail me (or do I fail them?)
David
>
> David Nyman wrote:
>
> > 1Z wrote:
> >
> > > 1) the don't seem to have, and they *are* what they seem
> > > 2) they are incommunicable in mathematical, and hence
> > > sructrural terms.
> >
> > 1) Well, this obviously depends on the subject of the seeming. To me,
> > 'red', 'middle C', or 'bitter' all *do* seem to possess a sort of
> > directly sensed 'vibrational' quality that is essential, for example,
> > to why I would feel they were 'like' or 'unlike' other colours, sounds,
> > or tastes, or where they would *subjectively* lie in 'spectra'
> > analogous (but not identical) to those of 'physical' properties.
>
> They have some mathematical/structural properties, but they a
> re underdefined by those properties -- theya
> re far from the wholes tory.
>
> > 2) They are by definition incommunicable in mathematical or any other
> > language, but this does not in my *experience* equate to their being
> > 'structureless' in *feel*.
>
> I disagree. I can discern no structure *within* the taste
> of lemon or the colour red. There are relations between
> tastes, colours and so on, but they underdiefine the tastes
> and colurs themselves.
>
> > If I attempt to imagine what the 'bare
> > substrate' would *feel* like, I am frankly at a loss because it *seems*
> > to be devoid of content - what would there be to be 'felt'? But beyond
> > the substrate we have the equally fundamental IMO notion of
> > differentiation (a neutral term I'm using because it isn't committed to
> > a purely 'physical' view) and it seems to me that the intersection of
> > substrate and differentiation could well *be* the direct experience of
> > content.
>
> The substrate could be differnentiated into properties
> that have no further reducible structure -- ie qualities.
>
> > I also call such content 'structure' because it is
> > differentiated but if you'd rather reserve this for the relational
> > idea, so be it.
>
>
>
> > > Correlation is not identity.
> >
> > Precisely. But the correlation of qualia with structurally
> > differentiated 'physical' phenomena leads to the intuition that qualia
> > themselves may be an *experiential synthesis* based on structural
> > differentiation of the same bare ('property-less' in your own terms)
> > substrate.
>
> What is an experiential synthesis ?
>
> > The substrate, as you say elsewhere, provides enduring
> > existence within which the properties manifest and change. I'm
> > suggesting that the *existence* of the differentiated substrate
> > *synthesises* the qualia (i.e. they entail multiple differentiations)
> > and the mutual *relations* of the differentiated substrate *are* the
> > 'properties'.
> >
> > BTW, when I meditate on a substrate whose differentiation resolves into
> > 'me' 'you' and other persons, I tend to 'take it personally'. The
> > 'impersonal' gaps between persons are IMO no different in kind than the
> > gaps between my own experiences at different times, places, branches of
> > MW, etc.
>
> I have no idea why you would think that.
>
> > The substrate is in these terms a single 'potential
> > experiencer'.
>
> It's a potential everything. Why an experiencer in particular ?
>
> > The actual experiences it possesses are then a function
> > of an infinite network of differentiation. I've said something
> > elsewhere about the implications of this for the perception of time
> > both as discrete, rather than totalised, experiences, and as a
> > 'dynamic' quale, mediated by discrete 'capsules' of locally-delimited
> > information.
> >
> > > Mutual relations are not internal relations. Purple
> > > lies between red and blue, but being told that
> > > doens't tell you what purple looks like unless you
> > > already know what red and blue look like. Realtional
> > > information about colours does not convey the colours
> > > themselves.
> >
> > Nothing can 'tell you what purple looks like'. Purple is a medium that
> > carries information, not information itself. However, the *feel* of
> > purple may seem related to the *feel* of blue. Isn't this ultimately a
> > matter for each 'seemer' to meditate on?
> >
> > > If that were the case, there would be no HP, and threfore no
> > > need for any first-personness worth arguing about.
> >
> > I don't think that the HP is a useful idea.
>
> That's hardly relevant! Problems are problems. They
> don't slink away if you accuse them of uselessness.
>
> > I think there is existence
> > and this is something I 'take personally' because it *seems* to
> > manifest as me, and other mes, all of whom I find it intuitive to
> > conceive as subsets of a much Vaster me, with 'conscious regions' (e.g.
> > 'me yesterday', 'me on the branch where I didn't have that last beer',
> > 'Peter five minutes ago') and 'unconscious regions' (e.g. 'me after
> > that last beer', interstellar space, a rock).
>
> Ontology is all about what you take as fundamental,
> and why. Your grounds for taking the me/not-me
> distinction as fundamental seem subjective and inutitive rather
> than logical.
>
> > The EP is the observable
> > behaviour (information content) of all this, insofar as we have access
> > to and can make sense of it.
>
>
> There must be a reason why the Ep is easy.
>
> > > That is still pure Chalmers -- natural supervenience is not identity,
> > > after all.
> >
> > Well, if 'experience' is the fact of *being* differentiable existence,
> > and 'the physical' is the observable relations thereof, then both
> > ultimately 'supervene' on there being something rather than nothing.
>
> No. There being something rather than nothing is only
> 1 buit of information: not enough for a universe to
> supervene on.
>
> A set of complex, changing properrties can only supervene on another
> set of complex, changing properties.
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/
>
>
> > Further correlation is IMO an empirical issue from which might stem a
> > more robust theoretical model embracing both. If this is the substance
> > of Chalmers' claim then I suppose I would go along with it.
> >
> > > > How - by relational modulation of the 0-personal substrate.
> > >
> > > If you modulate a bunch of relations , you get another bunch
> > > of relations. That is no departure from reductive physicalism.
> >
> > Yes, but that's not what I meant. You experience as the fact of *being*
> > the 'modulated' (differentiated) substrate, not *observing* it (i.e. as
> > information). You do of course observe it, but that then is 2nd-order,
> > the relational level of information, not the substrate level of
> > existence.
>
> I am beginning to think your substrate is one level above my substrate.
>
> > This is why I insist that differentiation is as 'primitive'
> > as the substrate, in the sense that there is nothing in the notion of
> > 'substrate' as a semantic container for 'bare enduring existence' that
> > would lead you to suppose that it was differentiable.
>
> But you cna't hav edifferentiation without something to
> be differentiated. So the substrate is more basic.
>
> > There's no
> > reducible 'process of differentiation' at this semantic level, but
> > rather having introduced the notion of difference, you can then
> > synthesise this into whatever sort of differentiation/ structure/
> > relation/ content you need for your theoretical ends.
> >
> > > If you are going to continue being unable to specify what is
> > > personal about your primordial 1st peson, then that would
> > > be better, yes.
> >
> > I don't really want to go back into the word dispute, but as I've
> > implied above, this may just be an aspect of explanatory style. Of
> > course I never meant to claim that the substrate is a 'person' as
> > conventionally conceived,
>
> That's just the problem I have. How can you have personality without
> persons ?
>
> > but as I say, I can't help 'taking
> > personally' the existent thing from which I and all persons are
> > emanating. I think, imaginatvely, that if one pictures a 'block
> > universe', Platonia, MW, or any non-process conception of reality, this
> > is more intuitive,
>
> I don't see why it should be. It does not conform to our
> experience.
>
> > because everything is 'just there' - superposed, as
> > it were. So, sure there's a 'layer' at which the individual 1st-person
> > 'emerges', but it's taking everything else 'working together' to
> > manifest it. So in this sense, for me, it's all 'personal'. But maybe
> > not for you.
> >
> > > It all depends on what you mean by physical. For me,
> > > what physicalism means beyond materialism is that
> > > all properties are quantitiative and relational. A consequence
> > > is that there is no layering of any significant kind.
> >
> > You're on to something here, I think. Of course you're right that the
> > physical description renders the other 'chemical', 'biological' etc.
> > schemas redundant. However, this is clearly not the case
> > experientially, and this seems a very fundamental distinction. 'Form'
> > for example exists experientially where it is a redundant concept
> > physically (though not Platonically). So there is something that is
> > producing a 'layering' that is shaping what we experience and in what
> > way. I've already suggested that experience is the fact of *being* the
> > structured substrate, and when we start to conceive the structure in
> > terms of behaviour (i.e. treat it dynamically) what emerges may well
> > display the characteristics of a perceiver+perceptual model system.
>
> That isn't at all clear to me - mainly because you
> are nto makign the all-improtant distinction between
> structures-structures and qualia-structures.
>
>
> > These characteristics would include the 'forms' of its perceptions and
> > the modalities of their qualia, including the 'dynamic' quale of
> > temporal experience. This would yield a relational treatment of
> > experience which would could be correlated to whatever degree with a
> > physical description. The results of this would be an empirical test of
> > conjectured 'supervenience' relations.
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Received on Sat Aug 12 2006 - 21:00:02 PDT