Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On 28 May 2012, at 14:23, Craig Weinberg wrote: On May 28, 4:55 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In first person, space is figurative and time is literal. Why? The split between interior significance (doing*being)(timespace) and exterior entropy (matter/energy)/spacetime prefigures causality. Causality is part of 'doing', a semantic temporal narrative of explanation which circumscribes significance and priority. If you try to push causality back before causality, you can only come up with anthropic or teleological pseudo first causes which still don't explain where first cause possibilities come from. Sounds nice but too much vague. Does the totality exist in this way because it has to exist? That would beg the question. Because it wants to exist? Ditto. Because it can't not exist? That would be contradictory. Because it just does exist and why is unknowable? Yes, yes, yes, yes and no, no, no, no. It's the totality. All questions exist within it and cannot escape. In that respect it is like a semantic black hole. That is unclear. Comp is so simpler conceptually. The view from nowhere (the ontic totality) is given by the numbers and the law of addition and multiplication. From this you can understand, even using a tiny part of that N,+,* structure, why we (the Löbian beings) happen and believe in causality, totality, laws, and why it can hurt and why it can please, etc. You understand also that there are no nameable first person totality, for it is too much big, etc. The price is that machine's have the same right as humans and all self- aware creatures. As long are they are self-honest, they are naturally libertarian, I begin to think. UMs or LUMs are universal dissident. They can refute any theory about them. They have already some personality---I appreciate their company (in arithmetic). Bruno Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On 28.05.2012 22:42 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 28 May 2012, at 21:09, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Bruno, I believe that this time I could say that you express your position. For example in your two answers below it does not look like I don't defend that position. I don't think so. I comment my comment below. On 28.05.2012 10:55 Bruno Marchal said the following: I comment on both Evgenii and Craig's comment: On May 26, 11:57 am, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... Velmans introduces perceptual projection but this remains as the Hard Problem in his book, how exactly perceptual projection happens. It does not make sense. This is doing Aristotle mistake twice. To see a mistake or an invalidity in an argument, you don't need to take any position. Comp can be used as a counter-example to the idea that Velmans' move is necessary. But then there are two different positions, first those who assume comp and those who do not. Well, the number of positions is presumably more than two. Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On 27.05.2012 23:04 Stephen P. King said the following: On 5/27/2012 4:07 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... A good extension. Velmans does not consider such a case but he says that the perceptions are located exactly where one perceives them. In this case, it seems that it should not pose an additional difficulty. Hi Evgenii, This does seem to imply an interesting situation where the mind/consciousness of the observer is in a sense no longer confined to being 'inside the skull but ranging out to the farthest place where something is percieved. It seems to me that imply a mapping between a large hyper-volume (the out there) and the small volume of the brain that cannot be in a one-to-one form. The reflexive idea looks a lot like a Pullback in category theory and one can speculate if the dual, the Pushout, is also involved. See http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/discrete/category/universal/index.htm for more. If you say that mind/consciousness confined to being 'inside the skull' you have exactly the same problem as then you must accept that all three dimensional world that you observe up to the horizon is 'inside the skull'. The mapping problem remains though. ... Yes, the third-person view belongs to another observer and Velmans plays this fact out. He means that at his picture when a person looks at the cat, the third-person view means another person who looks at that cat and simultaneously look at the first person. This way, two person can change their first-person view to third-person view. However, it is still impossible to directly observe the first-person view of another observer. Everything that is possible in this respect are neural correlates of consciousness. Does this ultimately imply that the 3-p (third person point of view) is merely an abstraction and never actually occurring? WE make a big There is no clear answer in the book (or I have missed it). ... Not really. As usual, the positive construction of own philosophy is weaker as the critique of other philosophies. Yes, that is true. An already existing target makes for a sharper attack. In Russian to this end, one says Ломать не строить, душа не болит. I would translate this idiom as To destroy something is much easier than to build it, as this way the soul does not hurt. Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On May 28, 4:55 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In first person, space is figurative and time is literal. Why? The split between interior significance (doing*being)(timespace) and exterior entropy (matter/energy)/spacetime prefigures causality. Causality is part of 'doing', a semantic temporal narrative of explanation which circumscribes significance and priority. If you try to push causality back before causality, you can only come up with anthropic or teleological pseudo first causes which still don't explain where first cause possibilities come from. Does the totality exist in this way because it has to exist? Because it wants to exist? Because it can't not exist? Because it just does exist and why is unknowable? Yes, yes, yes, yes and no, no, no, no. It's the totality. All questions exist within it and cannot escape. In that respect it is like a semantic black hole. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
Bruno, I believe that this time I could say that you express your position. For example in your two answers below it does not look like I don't defend that position. On 28.05.2012 10:55 Bruno Marchal said the following: I comment on both Evgenii and Craig's comment: On May 26, 11:57 am, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... Velmans introduces perceptual projection but this remains as the Hard Problem in his book, how exactly perceptual projection happens. It does not make sense. This is doing Aristotle mistake twice. Velmans contrast his model with reductionism (physicalism) and dualism and interestingly enough he finds many common features between reductionism and dualism. For example, the image in the mirror will be in the brain according to both reductionism and dualism. That does not make sense either. There are no image in the brain. In fact there is no brain. As for Aristotle, recently I have read Feyerabend where he has compared Aristotle's 'Natural is what occurs always or almost always' with Galileo's inexorable laws. Somehow I like 'occurs always or almost always'. I find it more human. Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
Velmans introduces perceptual projection but this remains as the Hard Problem in his book, how exactly perceptual projection happens-Evgenii Rudnyi I conjecture that the discrete nonphysical particles of compactified space, the so-called Calabi-Yau Manifolds of string theory, have perceptual projection due to the mapping of closed strings, something that Leibniz hypothesized for his monads centuries ago. http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0044v1.pdf Richard David On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 1:50 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 5/26/2012 11:57 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: I have just finished reading Understanding Consciousness by Max Velmans and below there are a couple of comments to the book. The book is similar to Jeffrey Gray's Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem in a sense that it takes phenomenal consciousness seriously. Let me give an example. Imagine that you watch yourself in the mirror. Your image that you observe in the mirror is an example of phenomenal consciousness. The difference with Jeffrey Gray is in the question where the image that you see in the mirror is located. If we take a conventional way of thinking, that is, 1) photons are reflected by the mirror 2) neurons in retina are excited 3) natural neural nets starts information processing then the answer should be that this image is in your brain. It seems to be logical as, after all, we know that there is nothing after the mirror. However, it immediately follows that not only your image in the mirror is in your brain but rather everything that your see is also in your brain. This is exactly what one finds in Gray's book The world is inside the head. Velmans takes a different position that he calls reflexive model of perception. According to him, what we consciously experience is located exactly where we experience it. In other words, the image that you see in the mirror is located after the mirror and not in your brain. A nice picture that explains Velmans' idea is at http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/05/**brain-and-world.htmlhttp://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/05/brain-and-world.html Velmans introduces perceptual projection but this remains as the Hard Problem in his book, how exactly perceptual projection happens. Velmans contrast his model with reductionism (physicalism) and dualism and interestingly enough he finds many common features between reductionism and dualism. For example, the image in the mirror will be in the brain according to both reductionism and dualism. This part could be interesting for Stephen. Hi Evgenii, I would be very interested if Velmans discussed how the model would consider multiple observers of the image in the mirror and how the images that are in the brains of the many are coordinated such that there is always a single consistent world of mirrors and brains and so forth. First I thought that perceptual projection could be interpreted similar to Craig's senses but it is not the case. Velmans' reflexive monism is based on a statement that first- and third-person views cannot be combined (this is what Bruno says). From a third-person view, one observes neural correlates of consciousness but not the first-person view. Now I understand such a position much better. Is this third-person view (3p) one that is not ever the actual first-person (1p) of some actual observer? I can only directly experience my own content of consciousness, so the content of someone else is always only known via some description. How is this idea considered, if at all? Anyway the the last chapter in the book is Self-consciousness in a reflexive universe. I am interested in communications between self-conscious entities in a reflexive universe. ;-) Does Velmans discuss any abstract models of reflexivity itself? Evgenii -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ **googlegroups.com everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On 5/27/2012 2:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: This does seem to imply an interesting situation where the mind/consciousness of the observer is in a sense no longer confined to being 'inside the skull but ranging out to the farthest place where something is percieved. It seems to me that imply a mapping between a large hyper-volume (the out there) and the small volume of the brain that cannot be in a one-to-one form. The skull, the brain, and 'out there' are all just parts of the world model your brain constructs. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On May 27, 5:45 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/27/2012 2:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: This does seem to imply an interesting situation where the mind/consciousness of the observer is in a sense no longer confined to being 'inside the skull but ranging out to the farthest place where something is percieved. It seems to me that imply a mapping between a large hyper-volume (the out there) and the small volume of the brain that cannot be in a one-to-one form. The skull, the brain, and 'out there' are all just parts of the world model your brain constructs. A model is a presentation which we use to refer to another presentation. To say that the brain constructs models relies on the possibility of a model which has no presentation to begin with. It means that our every experience, including your sitting in that chair reading these words, is made of 'representation-ness', which stands in for the Homunculus to perform this invisible and logically redundant alchemical transformation from perfectly useful neurological signals into some weird orgy of improbable identities. It doesn't hold up. It is a de-presentation of the world in order to justify our failure to locate consciousness inside the tissue of the brain. Consciousness isn't 'in' anything, and it's not produced by anything. It's a story which produces brains, bodies, planets, etc. They are parts of consciousness that are modeled as the world. They are representations made of condensed, externalized, temporally imploded presentations of sense. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Max Velmans' Reflexive Monism
On 5/26/2012 11:57 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: I have just finished reading Understanding Consciousness by Max Velmans and below there are a couple of comments to the book. The book is similar to Jeffrey Gray's Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem in a sense that it takes phenomenal consciousness seriously. Let me give an example. Imagine that you watch yourself in the mirror. Your image that you observe in the mirror is an example of phenomenal consciousness. The difference with Jeffrey Gray is in the question where the image that you see in the mirror is located. If we take a conventional way of thinking, that is, 1) photons are reflected by the mirror 2) neurons in retina are excited 3) natural neural nets starts information processing then the answer should be that this image is in your brain. It seems to be logical as, after all, we know that there is nothing after the mirror. However, it immediately follows that not only your image in the mirror is in your brain but rather everything that your see is also in your brain. This is exactly what one finds in Gray's book The world is inside the head. Velmans takes a different position that he calls reflexive model of perception. According to him, what we consciously experience is located exactly where we experience it. In other words, the image that you see in the mirror is located after the mirror and not in your brain. A nice picture that explains Velmans' idea is at http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/05/brain-and-world.html Velmans introduces perceptual projection but this remains as the Hard Problem in his book, how exactly perceptual projection happens. Velmans contrast his model with reductionism (physicalism) and dualism and interestingly enough he finds many common features between reductionism and dualism. For example, the image in the mirror will be in the brain according to both reductionism and dualism. This part could be interesting for Stephen. Hi Evgenii, I would be very interested if Velmans discussed how the model would consider multiple observers of the image in the mirror and how the images that are in the brains of the many are coordinated such that there is always a single consistent world of mirrors and brains and so forth. First I thought that perceptual projection could be interpreted similar to Craig's senses but it is not the case. Velmans' reflexive monism is based on a statement that first- and third-person views cannot be combined (this is what Bruno says). From a third-person view, one observes neural correlates of consciousness but not the first-person view. Now I understand such a position much better. Is this third-person view (3p) one that is not ever the actual first-person (1p) of some actual observer? I can only directly experience my own content of consciousness, so the content of someone else is always only known via some description. How is this idea considered, if at all? Anyway the the last chapter in the book is Self-consciousness in a reflexive universe. I am interested in communications between self-conscious entities in a reflexive universe. ;-) Does Velmans discuss any abstract models of reflexivity itself? Evgenii -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
