Proactive Behaviour and Causality

[Paul Mawdsley]

Unfortunately introspection is private and there is no way a second party can verify or falsify (by objective and empirical means) your introspections. Introspections may be very useful for reaching assertions that can be put in the public domain for either corroberation or refutation, but introspections by themselves can not be distinguished from lunatic ravings by an external party. And THAT is the problem. There is no way of integrating introspections, qua introspections into science. You may see the Truth privately, but we Others have no way of knowing whether you are right or wrong. So we have to ignore YOUR introspections as being evidence of anything. Until a Mind Reading machine is invented, this will remain the case.

From the standpoint of science, introspections are ka ka.

You have reaffirmed my point. From the standpoint of philosophy introspections are fair game and communication is possible. Just ask Freud, Jung, etc. The question I am posing is: what standard of objectivity can be applied to introspective explorations? I don't think there is any doubt that I have witnessed in others (and myself for that matter) a wide spectrum of introspective objectivity that ranges from lunatic to profound. How do we maintain profound?

Paul

[Dragonfly]

Not surprisingly, Dennett has said some sensible things about this subject. See for example here.

[tjohnson]

You have reaffirmed my point. From the standpoint of philosophy introspections are fair game and communication is possible. Just ask Freud, Jung, etc. The question I am posing is: what standard of objectivity can be applied to introspective explorations? I don't think there is any doubt that I have witnessed in others (and myself for that matter) a wide spectrum of introspective objectivity that ranges from lunatic to profound. How do we maintain profound?

Not sure what is meant by 'introspection' here, but much of what you have said I would call 'speculation', and there is no harm in that as long as one recognizes it as such.

[BaalChatzaf]

You have reaffirmed my point. From the standpoint of philosophy introspections are fair game and communication is possible. Just ask Freud, Jung, etc. The question I am posing is: what standard of objectivity can be applied to introspective explorations?

Paul

No standard of objectivity. Introspections are subjective fantasy. They are day dreams, at best and lunatic visions at worst. They may be useful in that they can lead to judgments that are meaningful in the public (inter-subjective) domain and are testable. Einstein's famed gedanken experiments were introspections and did not count until they led to a real live testable theory. My introspections and your introspections, from a public p.o.v. are ka ka. The don't count. They are just neural noise.

Any time you have to ask Freud of Jung for directions you are in the Land of Bullshit.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Not surprisingly, Dennett has said some sensible things about this subject. See for example here.

Dennett's wit and wisdom is damned near priceless. He is one philosopher who (a.) makes sense and (b.) says something useful about the world and (c.) is right most of the time. Dennett is one of the world's champion clarifiers.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Actually, we see the results of introspections all the time. There is one fact that is not debatable: a person who does not introspect is not fully conscious in the human sense.

This leads us to use the results (i.e., behavior) as an indicator of what goes on "in there." Just because we cannot see electrons

I don't introspect (any more). I think. I suppose. I propose. I infer. I perceive. I remember. I recall. I even take steps to protect myself and my family. But I do not introspect. I stopped doing that 60 years ago. I gave up childish fantasy as a waste of time. I am like Data on STTNG: I am not fully conscious and if I were given to emotional flight, I would be glad about it. The only "mental" drilling down I do, is to figure out proofs for theorems (and such like) or to recall items I need. Like what my wife asked me to get at the supermarket. Sometimes I use the locutions of introspection, but only to make communication with my fellow humans who claim to introspect, easier. Fortunately, I don't have a mind. I just have a brain and nervous system that functions well enough to insure my comfort and survival. Other people may or may not have minds, ghosts in their machine, as it were, but I do not. I do NOT have a haunted head.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Fer Krisssakes, introspection is not "childish fantasy." It is focused awareness on your own thoughts.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

Fer Krisssakes, introspection is not "childish fantasy." It is focused awareness on your own thoughts.

Michael

So you have uttered. Where is the objective evidence that I and any other third party can agree on? Yes, you have uttered

"Fer Krisssakes, introspection is not "childish fantasy." It is focused awareness on your own thoughts.". I can get witnesses to this effect. But the truth or untruth or you utterance remains safely in your head. I have no way of knowing this and neither does anyone else (except you). Which is why your utterance would not count in a laboratory, a refereed journal or a court of law. It ISN'T evidence.

Unlike you, I am aware of my thoughts -after- they have been presented in a public domain. I have to write or say them. But then again, I do not have a fully human consciousness.

As I said before, introspection is ka ka. It does not count until it becomes expressed in public.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Which is why your utterance would not count in a laboratory, a refereed journal or a court of law. It ISN'T evidence.

Bob,

Are you kidding me? In professional psychology, experiments are run all the time on utterances, such experiments and peer reviewed articles about them find their way into high-level referenced professional journels too numerous to list and motive is a fundamental part of an indictment in the courts.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Which is why your utterance would not count in a laboratory, a refereed journal or a court of law. It ISN'T evidence.

Bob,

Are you kidding me? In professional psychology, experiments are run all the time on utterances, such experiments and peer reviewed articles about them find their way into high-level referenced professional journels too numerous to list and motive is a fundamental part of an indictment in the courts.

Michael

Only when corroberated by external objective means. Introspection by itself, as a private mental event has no probative or substantive standing. You need stuff in the public domain, in intersubjective reality to corroberate or support anything. Introspections qua introspections are ka ka. There is no way for a second party to tell whether they are true, false, or even make sense. Ghosts in haunted heads carry no evidential weight.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

I hope you never have to go to court for a crime. I have a feeling that your lessons on what is or is not evidence will not be appreciated in the manner you might expect.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

You have reaffirmed my point. From the standpoint of philosophy introspections are fair game and communication is possible. Just ask Freud, Jung, etc. The question I am posing is: what standard of objectivity can be applied to introspective explorations?

Paul

No standard of objectivity. Introspections are subjective fantasy. They are day dreams, at best and lunatic visions at worst. They may be useful in that they can lead to judgments that are meaningful in the public (inter-subjective) domain and are testable. Einstein's famed gedanken experiments were introspections and did not count until they led to a real live testable theory.

I don't think I will surprise you by saying I disagree. Fantasies are something we can be aware of when we introspect. The act of introspecting is not fantasy. It is turning the mind's eye to look inward at mental events, trying to isolate and identify distinctions in the introspective field, possibly with the intention of modeling it, just as we isolate and identify distinctions in the perceptual field when we explore the world external to us.

I find such things so much easier to understand when I frame things in the context of one part of me doing the observing of mental events (i.e.: the mind's eye, the core of awareness, etc.) and other parts of me generating the objects I am aware of-- eg: my imagination generating a fantasy. It is introspective exploration, along with model building using one's concept of causality as a guiding epistemological principle, that allows us to piece together an understanding of the introspective landscape.

The standard of objectivity is found in one's concept of causality. Causality connects one's introspective evidence and models with one's extrospective evidence and models. The whole mind/body problem (if you don't assume the problem is an illusion by first devaluing introspective exploration) is testimonial to the fact that our existing concepts of causality are insufficient to integrate introspective evidence and models with extrospective evidence and models. I also think the debates that began with Einstein and Bohr over causality and quantum mechanics are also the result of deficiencies in our concepts of causation. Our concepts of causality meet their greatest tests when we attempt to model realities beyond what we can directly observe. Can we generate a concept of causation that can account for the apparent ability for an individual to make choices and initiate actions, not from programs, but from an awareness of the meaning of events to the individual? (Obvious question: does meaning = programs output?)Can we generate a concept of causation that can account for the apparent non-linear and non-local nature of quantum events?

Our concepts of causation are the action principles that guide the generation of our intuitive perspectives. (Something I figured out through introspection.) If we form a better concept of causality, can we raise the quality of our intuitive views to a level that can make sense of quantum mechanics, special relativity, general relativity, wave-particle dualism, consciousness, etc. without resorting to analogies all the time? With a better concept of causality can we come to visualize the hidden dynamics of these phenomena or are we stuck, as we are told by physicists and philosophers alike, with an intuitive capacity incapable of knowing reality?

Intuition, guided by action-reaction causation, led to the ether theory of existence. The Michelson-Morley experiment brought the ether theory crashing down. Einstein showed we can think of space and time in terms of geometry, without need to visualize anything filling the void. Then quantum mechanics squeezed out any remaining chance of anyone thinking they can intuitively visualize the dynamics at the foundations of reality. What if it has been our view of causality that has been wrong all along? What if we can visualize an underlying reality that is guided by a concept of causation that can account for the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment? What if we can visualize the underlying dynamics that give rise to the effects of special relativity and the geometry of space-time? What if quantum reality can be pictured using the right guiding principle of causation?

These are some of the questions I've been playing with for 20 years. They started with introspection and the guidance Rand and (especially) Branden's works. If such introspections could lead to a new way of understanding the physical world, would this then make them useful? Regardless, I continue to muddle introspectively.

Paul

PS- I have realized I am not particularly a science minded nor a philosophy minded person (although I enjoy trying to visualize both). Two of my earlier educational lessons were on how to be verbally and mathematically lazy and cruise through school. In an attempt to be precise, I am largely an introspective explorer and an intuitive model builder. (Hey, that statement proves itself!) Hence the reason for my bias toward introspection and intuition.

Words and symbols don't play a particularly large role in my thinking. I think in experiential and qualitative images. Words act more as a gentle guide to the direction of the images in my thinking. I find it hard work to convert these images into words that come close to expressing my meaning. This makes me a slow writer. I also often find it hard work to convert other people's words into meaningful images of my own. This makes me a slow reader. I am curious how others' thinking processes work. More introspection required!

[BaalChatzaf]

I don't think I will surprise you by saying I disagree. Fantasies are something we can be aware of when we introspect. The act of introspecting is not fantasy. It is turning the mind's eye to look inward at mental events, trying to isolate and identify distinctions in the introspective field, possibly with the intention of modeling it, just as we isolate and identify distinctions in the perceptual field when we explore the world external to us.

1. There is no mind. Humans have been slicing a dicing each other's bodies for ten millenia (at least). Never once was a mind found. I have been MRI scanned, CAT scanned and PET scanned and never a trace of mind showed up. How to explain this? Easy. There is no mind. At least -I- do not have a mind. But I do have a brain and nervous system. That showed up very nicely. Now, sir, if you were as will scanned as I was do you -really- expect that anyone would find a mind anywhere in your body? Really?

2. Your -brain- which does exist, is not a sense organ. It is an information processor of a kind. You brain is no more a sensor than the CPU of a computer.

3. The only eyes in your head are in front, come in pairs and have an interface for converting photon energy into chemical alterations of the rhodopsin molecules in the rods and cones of the retina.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I have been MRI scanned, CAT scanned and PET scanned and never a trace of mind showed up.

We could have told you that--and saved you a lot of money!

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

1. There is no mind. Humans have been slicing a dicing each other's bodies for ten millenia (at least). Never once was a mind found. I have been MRI scanned, CAT scanned and PET scanned and never a trace of mind showed up. How to explain this? Easy. There is no mind. At least -I- do not have a mind. But I do have a brain and nervous system. That showed up very nicely. Now, sir, if you were as will scanned as I was do you -really- expect that anyone would find a mind anywhere in your body? Really?

Minds are just as real or as unreal as gravity. It is a label we put on a category of net effects the underlying nature and dynamics of which we do not understand. I am every bit the physicalist you are. The difference between our views is rooted in our different epistemological methods and different concepts of causation.

2. Your -brain- which does exist, is not a sense organ. It is an information processor of a kind. You brain is no more a sensor than the CPU of a computer.

I don't disagree with you about the brain not being a sense organ. Yes, it is an information processor. Some of the information it processes has its origin within the brain. When we turn our attention to this information we experience and process it. What is it that is "turning its attention?" The question is: Does the brain process information the same way as a computer or is there something else going on? In principle, does awareness distinguish brains from computers?

3. The only eyes in your head are in front, come in pairs and have an interface for converting photon energy into chemical alterations of the rhodopsin molecules in the rods and cones of the retina.

The "mind's eye" is a figure of speech that has meaning to most people I talk to. Apparently not to you.

I am slowly reading the link to Dennett that Dragonfly posted. I am intrigued by the resonance Dennett seems to have with you and Dragonfly. Understanding how Dennett sees things helps my to understand the things you and Dragonfly say. I still disagree but I understand better.

Paul

[BaalChatzaf]

The "mind's eye" is a figure of speech that has meaning to most people I talk to. Apparently not to you.

I am slowly reading the link to Dennett that Dragonfly posted. I am intrigued by the resonance Dennett seems to have with you and Dragonfly. Understanding how Dennett sees things helps my to understand the things you and Dragonfly say. I still disagree but I understand better.

Paul

I take people literally as a matter of conviction. I will not charitably read between other people's lines. I will hold them to what they said. And may the same be done to me. If I mis-speak or mis-write, then the burden is on me to admit and correct my errors. I will not rely on the indulgence or charity of others to give me a free ride. Neither will I give anyone else a free ride.

I have had this policy since I was nine years old, which made me a pain in the ass to some of my peers and elders. My father, alahava shalom, of blessed memory, did approve of my deliberate literal mindedness. He said it helped to keep his feet to the fire. He was my Super Dad.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

The "mind's eye" is a figure of speech that has meaning to most people I talk to. Apparently not to you.

I am slowly reading the link to Dennett that Dragonfly posted. I am intrigued by the resonance Dennett seems to have with you and Dragonfly. Understanding how Dennett sees things helps my to understand the things you and Dragonfly say. I still disagree but I understand better.

Paul

Has anyone but you ever experienced, observed or detected your mind? I haven't. I have read what you have written. Others can attest to what you have written. It would seem that there is no public evidence that you (or anyone else) has a mind. You are among many who claim there are bats in their belfry and ghosts in their heads. I have not a single doubt that you sincerely believe there is an immaterial being in your head producing your thoughts and feelings.

I, one the other hand, no longer believe in spooks, spirits, ghosts and souls. If something is there I want it to show up, at least as a blip, on some screen. Even Wonder Woman's invisible plane will show up on radar, if it really exists.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

2. Your -brain- which does exist, is not a sense organ. It is an information processor of a kind. You brain is no more a sensor than the CPU of a computer.

I don't disagree with you about the brain not being a sense organ. Yes, it is an information processor. Some of the information it processes has its origin within the brain. When we turn our attention to this information we experience and process it. What is it that is "turning its attention?" The question is: Does the brain process information the same way as a computer or is there something else going on? In principle, does awareness distinguish brains from computers?

I think the characterization of the brain as "an information processor" is rather simplistic. As Paul pointed out some of the "information" originates in the brain itself so it is also an "information producer". The human nervous system is many orders of magnitude more complex than a computer and comparisons to the computer will always come up way short IMO. I think Paul poses an interesting question when he asks "What is it that is 'turning its attention'?" . Korzybski said that 'consciousness' by itself was incomplete and we need to be conscious of something for it to be meaningful. So when "we turn our attention inside" we are becoming conscious of our internal feelings, emotions, memories, images, etc. as opposed to what is going on around us. The interesting thing is that our only connection to WIGO around us is also in our nervous system but the "information" is originating outside our nervous system. General semantics is very much about differentiating between these different aspects of 'consciousness'.

[Paul Mawdsley]

I take people literally as a matter of conviction.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting some supernatural alternative. I am suggesting that our understanding of physical reality and the nature of causation may be more subtle and more complex than we currently understand. I use words like "soul" and "will" and "spirit" but, ultimately, I think everything is just physical things in motion. I'm just trying to figure out how physical things in motion can account for all that I am aware of. I've been playing with the idea that things might ultimately be physical things who's motions are an intrinsic property rather than the result of a transferred stuff called energy. This creates a possible natural way to have an entity that can break classical causal chains and initiate new ones. It also requires that the foundations of physics would have to be reinterpreted in a way that fits with existing knowledge of the physical universe.

I have not a single doubt that you sincerely believe there is an immaterial being in your head producing your thoughts and feelings.

I, one the other hand, no longer believe in spooks, spirits, ghosts and souls.

Apparently you have not been taking me literally.

I will not rely on the indulgence or charity of others to give me a free ride. Neither will I give anyone else a free ride.

It is not charity to look at what someone is pointing to when understanding is you goal. Since introspection is a solitary exploration of a private landscape, any communication requires mutual introspection and mutual effort to put together verbal descriptions of what is discovered. Refusing to do so stops communication. It doesn't make the other person wrong. Refusing to take the first person point of view amounts to refusing to participate in the mutual introspection and mutual effort necessary for communication about the nature of the inner world. Such refusal doesn't make for much of a philosophical argument even if it is Daniel Dennett who makes it.

Paul