Re: The source of the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness'
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:00 pm
LukeJTM wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:40 pm I would like to offer my own thoughts on that essay actually, section by section, to see if this will be of any value to the discussion. And maybe some feedback would be available from anyone interested in giving it. I do see its relevance to the discussion on "hard problems" in science and philosophy by the way, so I appreciate the link as a suggestion.
viewtopic.php?p=19458#p19458
So, looking through things as a whole, it seems the context is about examining our thought-life and how it shapes our perceptions of the world at large? Indeed. Although I'm not sure what is meant by "stripping reality of its coherence" or "Hence, the activity of his consciousness consists in an initial reduction of being to pure chaos and nothingness—to non-being." I am having trouble with the vocabulary. I guess you are wary of having trouble with vocabulary, but in fact you are not really having much trouble with it! Is this meant to be saying how our percepts and concepts initially are divided, and there seems to be a dichotomy of self and world? And that the cause of this lies within our own inner organization, Yes! if that is the right term. It's the right meaning - which is all that countsTHE human being—as an “I”—first, in a pre-conscious activity of destruction, strips reality of its coherence. This is not something he does so much as something he is. To wit, the human being is situated in the world in such a manner that he bifurcates and disintegrates its structure in the manner indicated above as a condition for his perception and cognition of it. Hence, the activity of his consciousness consists in an initial reduction of being to pure chaos and nothingness—to non-being.
We learn that we have slept not by sleeping, but through inference—by the fact of waking. Similarly, we know that we disintegrated the true being of the object of our perception by the fact of its manifestation to our consciousness.
So what this is saying is that percepts, without the corresponding concept to imbue them with meaning, lack intelligibility or sense to us? Yes, I agree! It brings to mind Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances", and the "crisis of meaning" that has popped up in our modern times. As I tried to explain briefly in my initial post here (the first page), there is a type of unconscious process in us that terms raw sense-data into meaningful phenomenon, which is referred to further down in the essay. This same faculty allows us to reunite the idea and meaning with what we are perceiving in the world at large. Is that an accurate interpretation so far? I would say it is. I only read the first few chapters of "Saving the Appearances". On that basis, my impression is similar to yours: both are phenomenologies of cognition, consistent with each other and with Steiner's. Only vocabulary is slightly different.The initial annihilation of being proceeds by the extraction of (a) the concept from the wholeness of reality. This leaves (b) a field of percepts to which (a) the concept was lending coherence, organization, and intelligibility. The latter (b) instantaneously disintegrates into dust, like matter without life. The Book of Genesis depicts the function of the concept as soul:
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul…you return to the ground–because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (2:7, 3:10)
I like the analogy here. If I don't understand what someone else is saying, i.e. they speak a language I do not, it seems unintelligible to me, even if I know there is a meaning being conveyed by the words they use. Unless I try to learn the language they speak, and practice it, it will remain this way. So it seems to be a similar process with gaining higher knowledge. Yes, for instance. And in terms of abstract models, the solutions to the "hard problems" seem opaque because there is a 'language' we aren't aware of yet, and must learn to develop in ourselves. Yes! That's a more elevated way to look at it. A more immediate way in which the hard problem dissipates is by looking at the given of experience, realizing in concrete terms the process we go through (as we are summarizing now with the help of this essay, PoF, and Barfield.)It follows from the above that there can be no “problem of knowledge” in the classical epistemological sense of Descartes and Kant any more than the meaning of the words I write is withheld from me. Certainly the words of others are opaque to my understanding in this way, to begin with, but only until I undertake this same process of death and resurrection described above in respect to them, at which point the speaker and I are one in spirit and I share in the meaning of what was expressed.
This is another area I am unfamiliar with the vocabulary. How are people here using the term "Christ" and "Logos"? As in, what is the meaning of these terms? Just so that I can get on the same page. Don't worry about vocabulary - As Ashvin said here, we should "entrust the terminology and lofty ideas we are not yet familiar with to the higher spiritual forces latent within our intellect."The archetype of knowledge is creatio ex nihilo. Hence it is an imitatio Christi in identitatem Logos—“an imitation of Christ in his identity as the Logos”—for as it is written, “in the beginning was the Logos…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1, 3) As Christ rose from the dust on the third day, so knowledge is the final moment following death and entombment.
The new Creation shimmers before the backdrop of non-being. It is perennially fresh because it has never existed before, like the virginal birth of Venus, who floats on the foam of chaos, born on the scallop-shell of consciousness to arrive on the shore of knowledge.
This description in the first commentary from Federica is clear. There seems to be a 'black box' between the conscious mind and the actual source of our conscious thoughts, feelings, etc. Similarly to how there seems to be a 'black box' between when we go to sleep and when we wake up (maybe we'll remember what we dreamed about). There is a stage between that normally is opaque (on a conscious level). This seems to be connected with why philosophers end up in labyrinths of complicated mental pictures of reality, and limitations of possible knowledge (e.g. Kantian dualism), or bottom-up material models. Yes! This same parallel you make between sleep-wake cycle and thinking cycle has Cleric recently made in this other thread on meditation: "So in a strange way we constantly reincarnate in our thoughts" similarly to how we reincarnate in our Earthly life, and in our every waking day too.So we awaken in the perception of the thought-output (we perceive our thoughts) only after they have reached down to the world of senses, and not as they unfold within the cognitive process. This is despite the fact that we ourselves have full responsibility for the unfolding.
So the first point that becomes extra-clear reading the essay is that human cognition is the unaware designer and operator of a sort of ‘secret industrial facility’ that continually precipitates thoughts down into the level where they become sensible to us.
And since this forum focuses on Bernardo Kastrup's idealism as well, I would like to bring up an interview he did with Richard Brown a few years ago which I believe is relevant to the discussion. It might seem off-topic but I think is still relevant to what is being discussed. Hopefully the link embeds.
Around 19 minutes into the video, Brown brings up an issue or a type of 'hard problem', which Bernardo responds to. Brown's point goes along the lines of: Why is that the thoughts of Mind at Large (MAL) should appear to us as the particular qualities of experience? Why should MAL appear to our 'dissociated consciousness' as the green of a tree? Why green; why not something else like red? The green of the tree seems arbitrary compared to the actual objective reality e.g. "the thoughts of MAL". This is a very tough objection of course. Bernardo tries to point out how a thought can influence emotions, because he wants to show that, whilst our dissociated minds may seem different from MAL, they are still of the same substance. So there isn't really any 'hard problem' here for how thoughts of MAL become what we experience as humans. Fair response. But here is his second response, which I think is worth examining further.
Bernardo's second response appeals to evolution by natural selection, where evolution has simplified or coded the thoughts of MAL into a kind of simplified dashboard for the sake of survival. The tree in it self (which is the thoughts of the universal Mind) appears to us as the qualities and physical properties we know such as green-ness, sounds, texture, solidity, extension in space, etc. It appears to us this way simply due to this 'dashboard' produced by evolutionary pressures.
I would be interested to hear what anyone reading this may have to comment on that. Because it does seem like it is a product of this 'black box' between our own mind, and the universal mind. The seeming 'black box' between our conscious thoughts and feelings, and their origins.
By appealing to evolution by natural selection, it sounds like it offers a solution that functions the same as materialism; where colour is reduced to something merely arbitrary; the concept is split apart from the percept (as Max's essay seems to be talking about). I wonder instead how this 'problem' could be explored instead with Steiner's epistemology (e.g. the first person approach). As I said, it is a very tough objection for Bernardo to respond to (especially for abstract theory), so I understand if his response is a bit limited or not really answering the 'problem' as deeply as Brown seemed to desire.
I haven't watched the video yet, so I will have to postpone comment on this part. As a starting point, I would say that the 'black box' is who we are, is our double nature as humans, it's the way we cognize reality at our current point of evolution, rather than something in between us and the objects of our perception. Also, taken from another angle, we are immersed in Thinking substance, rather than: "thinking is something that pertains to our activity, something originating from our mind" (very easy to lose sight of this one, speaking for myself).