[Zen] Re: [evol-psych] Re: Essay: Without Infinite Regress

[Edgar Owen]

Robert,

Well, I'm not sure what the point of your response below is but I'll  
attempt to reply.


First consciousness, in the ordinary sense, does no processing of  
visual information or anything else. That is all done by pre- 
conscious mental mechanisms and only the end result is presented to  
consciousness as a transient content of consciousness. So that  
answers that question which seems to be at the root of your quandary.


I'm glad you at least agree that I've solved the problem (actually  
just stated the obvious) of the eye not being able to see itself. But  
I assure you, the situation is exactly analogous to that of  
consciousness and explains precisely why there is no infinite  
regress. Simply put consciousness can't be conscious of itself, it  
can only be conscious of some model or idea of itself, precisely  
because consciousness is like a mental eye, it is what is doing the  
mental seeing, just as the physical eye is doing the physical seeing.  
Thus the mental eye of consciousness cannot see itself, it can see  
only thought representations of itself. These thoughts about itself  
are not consciousness itself, they are representations of it. The  
buck stops with both the physical eye and the eye of consciousness  
and there can be no infinite regress.


Also you didn't address my counterfactual re the many instances we  
are not aware that it is ourself that is being conscious, where there  
is no homunculus. Since that feeling can disappear yet consciousness  
still remain it is most obviously not essential to the functioning of  
consciousness, and is instead a transient mental construct.


And you totally ignored my point that there can be no infinite  
regress because if there were consciousness could not function. That  
simple fact in itself disproves infinite regress.


And you ignore my well established point that the self is a mental  
construct that arises during childhood.


Edgar







On Dec 1, 2008, at 10:20 PM, Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:



Edgar:
Yes we do have mental models and consciousness does see  
(experience) them. That is in fact what I just said. What I said  
was that consciousness experiences a mental model of self and a  
mental model of consciousness as an object (content) of  
consciousness. Consciousness doesn't experience itself - it can't  
because it is experience itself. The buck stops there


The eye cannot see itself. It can see only a model or image (eg. a  
reflection or photograph) of itself. That's the easy way to  
understand it Thus there is no infinite regress of eyes seeing  
eyes seeing eyes ad infinitum...


RKS:
You are telling me there is no problem to solve, and then offer  
proof by solving a different problem.


How can consciousness, by your usage of the term above, experience  
a visual scene without processing visual information?  And if it  
does process visual information, do we subjectively 'see' the  
processed or unprocessed version?


If a device, like a computer, is to respond to visual information  
then we don't have a problem.  Visual information is broken up into  
salient subsections, perhaps separating out, say, motion, objects,  
text and so on.  So far, so good.  But what if the computer is to  
have a conscious experience of vision?  What if the computer can  
switch off it's camera and imagine what it was seeing?  What if it  
reports the processed imagery rather than what the camera saw?


The text filter only sees and reads the text, but the computer  
reports that it can see the text in context ie it can 'see' the  
output of both the object filter and the text filter.  Have a look  
at some Russian text, or Greek, or any text that you can not read.   
That is what text should look like if we only see the visual  
imagery of it.  But we see words.  To see words, the text must  
follow a different processing path to the rest of the image seen.


We know this because the text filter can be knocked out separately  
from other visual processing.  When this happens, the text  
previously readable becomes like Greek text even if the individual  
can still spell words and even if the individual can still write  
them.  The words written are simply not recognised - the ink on the  
paper is still perfectly visible but the extra processing and  
integration of that processed information with the rest of that  
visual field does not occur.  We know that this reintegration  
occurs because the process is relatively easy to trick into error -  
adding, subtracting and changing words (a trick well known to  
psychology students).


So how is it done?  The computer must reintegrate all the filtered  
visual information (colours, objects, edges, motions etc) and then  
somehow look at it so that it can report having seen the processed  
info.


You have simply wandered off into some diatribe about self  
reflection which I have repeatedly said is an unrelated issue.  It  
is not in the essay at the root of this t

[Zen] Re: [evol-psych] Re: Essay: Without Infinite Regress

[Edgar Owen]

Mark,

I presume by that you mean we can never directly perceive reality as  
it actually is. I agree with that. What we do directly perceive is  
our cognitive constructs of reality. That is our direct experience.


That is what Zen means when it says 'seeing illusion as illusion is  
reality'. Illusion (our mental constructs of actual external reality)  
is our only reality. It is all we can directly experience.


Edgar



On Dec 2, 2008, at 6:36 AM, Mark Hubey wrote:


It is pointless to create a dichotomy e.g. indirect perception vs
direct perception when "direct perception" neither exists, nor
can exist, nor does it have any meaning.

That is the way to voodoo.

it means that the concept of perception or cognition is not even
understood.

Edgar Owen wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I'll let Andy respond since both of your questions refer to his  
words

> and I'd express it somewhat differently. But yes, I have given
> extensive thought to this subject for many years in case that  
comment

> was addressed to me.
>
>
> Edgar
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Mark Hubey wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> andy_morleyuk wrote:
>> > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> , Edgar Owen
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> > []
>> >
>> >> The error is quite simple, it is the false assumption that
>> >> consciousness is self-consciousness, which I've debunked a  
number of
>> >> times on this forum When one falsely assumes that  
consciousness

>> >> is self consciousness, then one is stuck with infinite regress,
>> >>
>> >
>> > I'll buy that Edgar. In my own terms, just as we don't directly
>> > experience other people,
>>
>> Perhaps you can explain to us what "direct experience" or "direct
>> perception" means.
>>
>> > We don't interact directly with our own selves any more than
>> > we interact directly with other selves.
>>
>> How would we "directly interact with ourselves"?
>>
>> Have you given much thought to what your sentences mean?
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> H.M. Hubey
>>
>
>

--
Regards,

H.M. Hubey

[Zen] Re: [evol-psych] Re: Essay: Without Infinite Regress

[Edgar Owen]

Andy,

I'm in general agreement but one comment. The cognitive model we or  
any organism has of the actual external world (which is the entirety  
of our experience of that world) consists of qualia which are unique  
and private to the organism, but it also consists of a logical  
structure amongst the qualia. This logical structure must in fact be  
a reasonably accurate model of the actual laws of nature in the  
physical world for the organism to be able to survive and function.


Thus it is the logical structure of our mental world model which is  
closer to actual reality than the individual 'things' we think we  
experience in the external world which are actually our own mental  
constructs.


E.g. our mental concept of a bus is nothing at all like the actual  
quantum reality of the bus, but the causal laws of getting killed if  
we step in front of our mental model of the bus do hold. The logical  
structure of that reality is accurate but the representation is our  
own private mental construct.


Edgar


On Dec 2, 2008, at 2:55 AM, andy_morleyuk wrote:

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Edgar Owen  
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> Mark,
>
> I'll let Andy respond since both of your questions refer to his  
words

[...]

OK will do... see below.

> On Dec 1, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Mark Hubey wrote:
>
[...]

> > Perhaps you can explain to us what "direct experience" or "direct
> > perception" means.
> >
> > > We don't interact directly with our own selves any more than
> > > we interact directly with other selves.
> >
> > How would we "directly interact with ourselves"?
> >
> > Have you given much thought to what your sentences mean?

Yes - 'direct interaction' is an illusion, like that created by the  
flick-

books some of us played with as children, like old-fashioned cine-
film that creates a semblance of motion through a succession of
still-frames and still does in its modern equivalents. So when we
interact with each other socially, we come up with all sorts of
verbal terms to describe concepts that which do not translate
directly into scientific language - the process of translation  
requires

care and challenges the outdated verbal tools that most of us seem
to use.

As intelligent, social animals, we make our own subjective sense
of the information that we're presented with and that gives it a
'virtual', impressionistic meaning that is different from what is
actually happening. We've invented the concept of 'abstract
nouns' to convey all manner of impressions and feelings that
have varying degrees of real, physical connection with the real
physical world, but which are usually a fair way removed from it.

To try to explain one type of thing (the abstract) in the language
of the other (the physical) often does not work, unless you go about
it in a way that caters specifically for that difference. We are used
to doing it in areas like telecoms where we have a whole set of
languages to deal with different layers of reality - concepts such
as hierarchies of protocols, levels of abstraction and 'metadata'
to name but a few.

If you don't have such a formalised language for the subject area
that is also tried and tested (as it inevitably has to be in something
as critical as telecoms) then you run into difficulties. That's what's
happening here.

Andy

[Zen] Re: [evol-psych] Re: Essay: Without Infinite Regress

[Edgar Owen]

Robert,

Watching whatever the contents of consciousness happen to be at the  
moment is what is being watched.


The basic problem with your entire analysis is that it describes a  
scientific, i.e. cognitive model, of the process by which experiences  
arise to consciousness. That is this whole model is in fact a  
construct or content of the very consciousness it attempts to  
analyze. I understand all those details of vision but they aren't  
relevant to this question.


So the basic point is that it doesn't really matter how any  
particular content of consciousness arises into consciousness. How  
that happens in all its complex details are the so called 'Easy  
Problems' of consciousness. These are irrelevant to the solution of  
the 'Hard Problem' which is how consciousness itself arises from the  
physical world.


So how the contents of consciousness arise is irrelevant to the  
infinite regress problem which has to do with the nature of  
consciousness itself.


There is no homunculus, or rather there is a homunculus (the watcher  
- the self) but it is just one more (even though a unique one) mental  
construct and simply an experienced content of consciousness just as  
every other discrete thing is a content of consciousness.


This is easily proven because everyone experiences times when they  
are 'in the groove', say in the intensity of dance or sports or  
music, and everything seems to happen quite naturally and just right  
on its own without thought and without self reflection. At such times  
the homunculus has vanished, the watcher has vanished, there is just  
direct intense unmediated experience without any thought of self  
directing it all. Of course one can always stop and choose to reflect  
on the self watching what one is doing, but one wasn't doing that  
when one was in the groove.


In fact if you really think about it you are only periodically aware  
of your self watching you do things, most of the time you are just  
engrossed in doing them with no or little thought of 'it is me that  
is doing this and I'm watching myself do it'. That state of mind is  
relatively rare and thus not fundamental.


What is fundamental is direct experience of whatever in the present  
moment. That is consciousness, that is ever present (disregarding  
sleep and death and anesthesia).


Finally your meditation example is not what I mean by meditation. My  
meaning of meditation is stilling the mind and observing each arising  
content of consciousness as a transient content of consciousness  
rather than a thing in itself, i.e. not a book but a thought  
representation of a book passing through consciousness, and not  
following up any such content by others, just letting them flow by  
and disappear. Gradually with practice the thoughts diminish greatly  
and eventually only consciousness itself remains, bright, clear and  
devoid of (almost) all content. At that point the mental model of the  
self vanishes as well as all other thoughts. There is no homunculus  
watching you watching, there is only watching. Then, with practice,  
when one leaves meditation and the contents of consciousness begin to  
arise again one clearly sees that whatever contents arise they are  
all contents of the same fundamental consciousness that was present  
in meditation and is always present (except when it isn't of course).  
This enables one to understand there is no watcher, there is only  
watching. The watcher is simply one more occasional mental content  
that gets watched like all the others.


Edgar


On Dec 1, 2008, at 6:35 PM, Robert Karl Stonjek wrote:



Edgar
But the viewer and the thing viewed is precisely the problem of  
self-consciousness because the infinite regress problem does not  
arise unless the thing viewed is the viewer. The error is that  
there is no viewer of consciousness, no self that stands outside of  
and views consciousness, the notion of a viewer is just one of many  
constructs and contents of consciousness. That is the whole point  
of my post.


So the error of conflating consciousness with self consciousness is  
in fact the root problem of the supposed infinite regress.


Consciousness of itself is not an infinite regress, because  
consciousness can only view a cognitive model of consciousness as a  
content of consciousness, never consciousness itself so no infinite  
regress is possible.


Your problem may stem from the feeling that there is a watcher  
which knows it is watching the contents of consciousness pass by.  
The error is that that sense of a watcher is just another content  
of consciousness. This sense of self is an evolutionary adaptation  
which facilitates more efficient interaction with an environment.  
However in deep meditation, when consciousness itself is most  
evident due to the diminution of the passing contents of  
consciousness, the feeling there is a watcher vanishes and only  
direct experience, antecedent to the distinction of watc