On 1 Sep, 09:49, Flammarion <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
There are two points you make that I'd like to comment specifically
on:
> OK. Memory is relevant to consciousness. It is relevant
> specifically to access consciousness. it is also easily explained
> physically and not therefore part of the HP and not
> therefore of much philosophical interest.
I agree that this is not part of the HP. It is however highly
relevant to the grain issue and the apparent conscious-unconscious
dichotomy, which are two of the things you have been pressing me on.
Hence given such relevance I can hardly agree that it lacks
philosophical interest.
> > By the way, if you have a
> > simple extrinsic account of the phenomena of the specious present, I'd
> > be genuinely interested in more detail.
>
> I think I gave one. Slow communications in the brain=short term
> information storage=specious present
>
> You could hardly *not* have one.
Yes, I thought this was probably what you had in mind. This is what I
meant by the assumption of a simple traverse through time, and hence
your proposal is at odds with either flux or block models of time.
The "slow communications" you refer to, under the flux interpretation,
would simply decompose into multiple slices, which taken individually
could not plausibly constitute the specious present. Hence "short
term information storage" outside such individual slices already
presupposes some form of integration 'through time' - i.e. across
slices. This points to the fact that there is something deeply
counter intuitive about our actual experience of the 'present moment'
with respect to either of the standard temporal analyses.
My strong suspicion (and be clear I'm not putting it any higher than
this) is that the same mechanism that synthesises and presents
integrated temporal experience (think of melody as opposed to pitch)
is also central to the qualitative aspect of self-conscious states.
IOW there's something going on that both integrates and differentiates
the internal worlds we inhabit, in this characteristic way, that is
not analysable in terms of simple linear process through the standard
time dimension of physics. I would also suspect that this is relevant
to why qualia have been so elusive on the basis of such analyses. The
basic 'temporal' notion bears some family resemblance to ideas such as
Barbour's time capsules, although in discussion he did not commit
definitively on the precise relationship between this conception and
the full duration of the specious present.
David
> On 1 Sep, 00:09, David Nyman <david.ny....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > 2009/8/31 Flammarion <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden>:
>
> > > That says nothing about qualia at all.
>
> > It would be helpful if we could deal with one issue at a time. Most
> > of the passage you commented on was intended - essentially at your
> > provocation - as a contextual exploration of possible conditions for
> > recallable consciousness experience, not an explication of qualia per
> > se.
>
> But the context of the thread was you asking me about Chalmer's theory
> of intrinsic qualia. I answered that relevantly. You appear to have
> drifted off.
>
> > But you haven't commented on this.
>
> OK. Memory is relevant to consciousness. It is relevant
> specifically to access consciousness. it is also easily explained
> physically and not therefore part of the HP and not
> therefore of much philosophical interest.
>
> > By the way, if you have a
> > simple extrinsic account of the phenomena of the specious present, I'd
> > be genuinely interested in more detail.
>
> I think I gave one. Slow communications in the brain=short term
> information storage=specious present
>
> You could hardly *not* have one.
>
> >As to qualia, I've said
> > before that I believe qualitative instantiation to be beyond extrinsic
> > explanation (though not beyond indirect reference) for the simple
> > reason that all explanation takes place in terms of it
>
> That couldn't be more wrong. Mathematical/structural/functional
> thinking
> is qualia-free, and the HP is the problem of recovering qualia from a
> description
> in those terms
>
> > (if you're
> > wondering what this means I trust a little introspection will
> > suffice).
>
> Done that, came to opposite conclusion.
>
> > > Do you think Chalmers suggestion that qualia are intrinsic properties
> > > of fundamental particles is feasible or not?
>
> > I doubt, despite standard usages suited to technical ends, that talk
> > of properties is helpful in this regard.
>
> Are you ever going to say what this problem with properties is?
>
> > There are fundamental
> > problems with any attempt to attach first-person consciousness to
> > matter,
>
> PM or material structures and processes?
>
> >for the obvious reason that matter cannot be reduced to
> > individually identifiable entities.
>
> PM or material structures and processes?
>
> > Consequently, the
> > self-referential "I" is attachable only contextually to some overall
> > schema in which fundamental differentiation - physical or otherwise
> > (e.g. 'computational') can then play a processual role.
>
> Can't matter have processes?
>
> > I've remarked
> > before that 'knowledge' must be regarded in the final analysis as
> > ontic - i.e. we *instantiate* what we know - the subject-object
> > distinction in mentality is merely a metaphor inferred from the
> > polarisation of roles. When I've said this in other contexts you've
> > usually reacted with bewilderment, so if this still seems opaque
> > perhaps you could specify what is unclear. Anyway, on this basis we
> > might think of qualitative instantiation as consisting in peculiarly
> > differentiated ways-of-being, as distinct from the unbroken symmetry
> > of the undifferentiated context. As an aid to intuition, you could
> > think of this distinction in broadly similar terms to those you have
> > proposed for 'property-less' materiality as an enduring existential
> > substrate for extrinsic physical properties.
>
> Err yeah. How about you explain this property issue.
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Received on Tue Sep 01 2009 - 09:29:02 PDT