Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

It's the most important level, in my opinion. The material corporate form might be partially conditioned by its individual parts (i.e. people), but this form in turns conditions how it operates in the world. The easiest evidence is to point to the fact that corporations are basically treated like people, and yet they're supra-human, non-conscious entities. They function without recourse to a central consciousness - they are either consciousness-less, or a multiplicity of consciousnesses.

I also think that corporate culture refers to the atmosphere of consumerism and the bombardment of images and slogans that we endure each day. I know you have some objections here, but I personally see our epoch as one of resistance toward consciousness and subjectivity, as influenced by an increasingly technologized globe. This is why we see evidence of anti-humanism in everything from the poststructuralism of the 1960s and onward, to the speculative materialism of Meillassoux and Brassier, and even in texts on cognitive science and consciousness by people like David Chalmers and Thomas Metzinger. You can say that this trend is entirely separate from economic development, but I would disagree; I think the evidence suggests that such theoretical concepts accompany technological (which I'm basically conflating with economic) development.

Well I agree with the tech/econ conflation to some degree. There is certainly a significant degree of interplay. However, I don't think that all of the neuroscience discoveries and/or wordgames about consciousness disable or devalue subjectivity. Assuming our consciousness is merely an evolutionarily emergent faculty born of the organization of competing sensory inputs, where the "I at the controls" is an illusion, this doesn't in any way attack subjectivity.

The problem philosophically and scientifically (although probably in most cases in different ways) is not one of reality but the one of misguided questions and answers. I do not necessarily shy away from tautologies and truisms, and it is a truism that "ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answers".

I appreciate how you consistently bring up this point; i.e. that resisting subjectivity requires a subjective position. I would suggest, however, that it's actually easier for us to reduce certain things like importance and value to subjective experience because that's how we encounter them. Voluntarism does not alter or create value; voluntarism merely allows us to participate in already-existing systems of value.

And I don't mean to be a dick bringing it up, I'm just simply pointing out that any singleness or even a singularity involves a unique perspective that cannot be accurately described or significantly differentiated in any other way besides subjective.

However, I disagree regarding Voluntarism (although it caught me off guard that you brought it up since I haven't really mentioned it in a while). While it is certainly true that voluntarism allows for participating in existing systems and forms, it also allows for the new, or even the old made new.

To highlight why I posted this: just as language must operate as though it precedes communicative speech, so value operates as though it pre-exists any subjective projection of value. It cannot be reduced to either subjective experience or any absolute existence in reality.

Thanks. I don't deny market processes, by the way; I believe they're alive and well, and that they can help us understand cultural phenomena.

EDIT: I also wanted to post this here:

This illuminates the difference between understanding something in a formal sense, as opposed to simply understand its content.

I.E. - people know that money is inherently worthless (content), but they function as though it is value incarnate (form).

I don't really disagree with this summation of the 3 schools as listed - it is just incomplete as it leaves off the Austrian perspective. Also,given that people fall for the money illusion pretty predictably, I think there is something akin to a "commodity money shaped hole". Its source or its permanence is of course up for debate.

On a similar note to the first segment of this post content/response:

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/07/the_one_thing_neil_degrasse_tyson_got_wrong/

 

[Einherjar86]

Well I agree with the tech/econ conflation to some degree. There is certainly a significant degree of interplay. However, I don't think that all of the neuroscience discoveries and/or wordgames about consciousness disable or devalue subjectivity. Assuming our consciousness is merely an evolutionarily emergent faculty born of the organization of competing sensory inputs, where the "I at the controls" is an illusion, this doesn't in any way attack subjectivity.

Uhhh... yes it does.

The experience of subjectivity can't be the entire story, and the illusion of the "I" forces us to consider how consciousness works, the relationship of the "mind/ego" to the "brain," and the consequences of acknowledging our non-egoic substrate.

Even if subjectivity exists as an experience, or as something observed, that doesn't mean it can be the sole condition of our actions and beliefs. If science and philosophy tells us that there is no essential, or absolute, "I" lurking at the core of our being, then that has to play into our account of consciousness and subjectivity itself. Subjectivity is not an absolute aspect of the human condition, but a functional adaptation evolved out of complex processes circling about in the brain and body. If anything, the "I" must be construed as an absent center (in a Derridean sense), a myth (in the Barthesian sense), and a black hole (in a very materialist sense).

And I don't mean to be a dick bringing it up, I'm just simply pointing out that any singleness or even a singularity involves a unique perspective that cannot be accurately described or significantly differentiated in any other way besides subjective.

However, I disagree regarding Voluntarism (although it caught me off guard that you brought it up since I haven't really mentioned it in a while). While it is certainly true that voluntarism allows for participating in existing systems and forms, it also allows for the new, or even the old made new.

I agree; but I'm saying you can't neglect the systemic and the macro. Which is what you very consistently try to do. Your most recent blog post testifies as much.

I don't really disagree with this summation of the 3 schools as listed - it is just incomplete as it leaves off the Austrian perspective. Also,given that people fall for the money illusion pretty predictably, I think there is something akin to a "commodity money shaped hole". Its source or its permanence is of course up for debate.

On a similar note to the first segment of this post content/response:

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/07/the_one_thing_neil_degrasse_tyson_got_wrong/

I agree with the article, for the most part. Stephen Jay Gould says something along the lines of aesthetics existing as a material phenomenon, but a phenomenon that cannot be historically situated prior to human existence, and so the humanities serve an important role in allowing us to inquire and explore the workings of aesthetics.

That said, aesthetics is never reducible to a single subjective experience. I can't tell if the author of that article is suggesting as much.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/07/the_one_thing_neil_degrasse_tyson_got_wrong/

Interesting article. Didnt expect that from salon.

You two fags need to post more random thought provoking articles

Heres another one on Tyson: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/massi...on-and-the-value-of-philosophy_b_5330216.html

It's strange to think someone as smart as Tyson would probably never read Foucault or Derrida

 

[Einherjar86]

You two fags need to post more random thought provoking articles

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-casts-doubt-on-black-holes.html#.U5RnEvldWSo

According to the MECO theory, objects in our universe can never actually collapse to form black holes. When an object gets very dense and hot, subatomic particles start popping in and out of existence inside it in huge numbers, producing copious amounts of radiation. Outward pressure from this radiation halts the collapse so the object remains a hot ball of plasma rather than becoming a black hole.

Heres another one on Tyson: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/massi...on-and-the-value-of-philosophy_b_5330216.html

It's strange to think someone as smart as Tyson would probably never read Foucault or Derrida

It's not that surprising, considering the strong anti-philosophical drive among scientists today. Steven Pinker is another annoying barfly on the issue. Unfortunately, I think many of them don't bother to read the really interesting recent philosophy that takes scientific premises as their primary topic in order to reconcile the two fields. Quentin Meillassoux's first book opens this way, as does Ray Brassier's, Alain Badiou's philosophy is indebted to mathematical principles, even Žižek's philosophy is concerned with 20th-century science, mainly quantum physics. Manuel DeLanda is probably one of the most interesting philosophers working today whose interests coincide dramatically with scientific models.

Foucault was interested in science primarily as an institution of power, so it's not surprising that most scientists today probably dismiss him (even though it's impossible to dissociate scientific institutions from power, since they require financing; this doesn't mean they can't tell us anything, of course).

Derrida had a lot to say about science, even if he didn't do so explicitly. Personally, I believe that poststructuralism in general is a cultural-philosophical response to scientific, economic, and technological developments of the twentieth century. Poststructuralism is a reflection of shifting modes of knowledge, and it betrays our increasing skepticism toward the human and singular consciousness. So, rather than characterize poststructuralism and deconstruction as separate, abstract observing systems that can comment on cultural from a totally removed position, we should acknowledge that poststructuralism emerges as an effect of rapidly changing material conditions (that being said, it - as with institutions of science - can still tell us useful information about the society we inhabit).

 

[Dak]

Uhhh... yes it does.

The experience of subjectivity can't be the entire story, and the illusion of the "I" forces us to consider how consciousness works, the relationship of the "mind/ego" to the "brain," and the consequences of acknowledging our non-egoic substrate.

Even if subjectivity exists as an experience, or as something observed, that doesn't mean it can be the sole condition of our actions and beliefs. If science and philosophy tells us that there is no essential, or absolute, "I" lurking at the core of our being, then that has to play into our account of consciousness and subjectivity itself. Subjectivity is not an absolute aspect of the human condition, but a functional adaptation evolved out of complex processes circling about in the brain and body. If anything, the "I" must be construed as an absent center (in a Derridean sense), a myth (in the Barthesian sense), and a black hole (in a very materialist sense).

It does not necessarily follow that subjectivity is destroyed in the process of the destruction of dualism and the awareness of contingency and competition of the senses. In fact, it serves to strengthen the concept of subjectivity.

I agree; but I'm saying you can't neglect the systemic and the macro. Which is what you very consistently try to do. Your most recent blog post testifies as much.

It does no such thing. I said there was a disagreement over the approach to Macro, not that theres no such thing as a "big picture" or whatever.

I agree with the article, for the most part. Stephen Jay Gould says something along the lines of aesthetics existing as a material phenomenon, but a phenomenon that cannot be historically situated prior to human existence, and so the humanities serve an important role in allowing us to inquire and explore the workings of aesthetics.

That said, aesthetics is never reducible to a single subjective experience. I can't tell if the author of that article is suggesting as much.

All I took from it was that science hasn't killed philosophy although scientists would like to think so. And given the opinion of a couple of philosophy majors I've talked to on campus, somehow that seems to be bleeding into the opinions of the handful of people even interested in philosophy to begin with these days.

 

[Einherjar86]

It does not necessarily follow that subjectivity is destroyed in the process of the destruction of dualism and the awareness of contingency and competition of the senses. In fact, it serves to strengthen the concept of subjectivity.

How so?

It does no such thing. I said there was a disagreement over the approach to Macro, not that theres no such thing as a "big picture" or whatever.

Austrian economics holds that these "macro" theories and beliefs are at best useless and ineffective, and at worst damaging.

If it's useless, ineffective, and damaging, then I can't see how the Austrian School sees it as worth preserving.

All I took from it was that science hasn't killed philosophy although scientists would like to think so. And given the opinion of a couple of philosophy majors I've talked to on campus, somehow that seems to be bleeding into the opinions of the handful of people even interested in philosophy to begin with these days.

Of course it hasn't killed philosophy; because, even as the Salon article says, Tyson's cosmic perspective is still a philosophical position. Science's biggest beef has been with the dreaded postmodernist relativism, which is a woefully misunderstood theory.

Science devoid of philosophy cannot help but occupy an ambiguous position in terms of truth claims. Science would have us believe that its claims profess facts, but not values; this is a contradictory statement, because truth entails value. And as soon as value comes into play, we've wandered into the dangerous liminal territory of metaphysics and idealism.

Science is enmeshed and intertwined with philosophy. Scientists who profess otherwise are operating under a supreme false consciousness.

 

[Dak]

How so?

The process is easily construed as even more unique, rendering an extremely individual perspective, not merely individual in the unique totality of the single body as a distinct unit, but in the ever adjusting breakthrough of competing sensory inputs within that distinct body. This is a richer subjectivity, not subject to common souls or other such things.

If it's useless, ineffective, and damaging, then I can't see how the Austrian School sees it as worth preserving.

The mainstream conception of macro is not the only possible conception or theory(ies)of the macro economy....

 

[Einherjar86]

The process is easily construed as even more unique, rendering an extremely individual perspective, not merely individual in the unique totality of the single body as a distinct unit, but in the ever adjusting breakthrough of competing sensory inputs within that distinct body. This is a richer subjectivity, not subject to common souls or other such things.

"Richer," "unique," "strengthen"... Your rhetoric muddles your point.

It's certainly true that the emergence of consciousness and subjectivity is a unique phenomenon in human organisms, but I'm not convinced that our redefinition of consciousness as something complex and collective (i.e. an effect of accretions of sensations and apprehensions) means it is "stronger" or "richer." These seem like arbitrarily chosen descriptors.

The reason why subjectivity is weakened is because there's nothing essential or central holding it down, so to speak. You can no longer locate the center of subjectivity (the soul, or whatever originary source of consciousness Descartes presumed to have existed) in any organ or place in the body. Subjectivity functions as an effect of various causes working together in a certain way.

This doesn't expose subjectivity's strength, but in fact its fragility. Furthermore, the conception of consciousness as an evolutionary phenomenon (not an absolute condition handed down from God to men) forces us to contextualize it in terms of organic development. Prosthetic technologies aside, consciousness has severely hampered our effectiveness as instinctual organisms.

The mainstream conception of macro is not the only possible conception or theory(ies)of the macro economy....

Well, your quote about the Austrian School makes it sound as though its adherents believe there can be no useful theory about macroeconomics.

EDIT: since Jimmy is fond of articles, here are some blog posts by intelligent individuals regarding more nuanced and speculative theories on consciousness:

Scott Bakker:

http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/speculative-musings/a-bestiary-of-consciousnesses/

In addition to the above, evolutionary exigency also seems to suggest that consciousness is largely ad hoc. Inadvertent Consciousness assumes that the actual function of consciousness massively contradicts our manifest intuitions, that given the drastic nature of its coarseness, truncation, and tangling it is neither central nor sufficient. Intentionality is not real and phenomenology, as traditionally understood, is not possible, simply because we do not possess the consciousness we think we do.

Peter Watts:

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=791

So most of our activities — somatic and cognitive — operate under the purview of these various systems, and as long as they don’t come into conflict we’re not aware of them. But when there is conflict — when SubSystem A tells the body to do this and SubSystem B says no, do that — then we’ve got a problem. Then, the competing agendas enter the arena to do battle. Consciousness, according to Morsella, is a forum for crosstalk between different systems, the only forum in which these systems can communicate when in conflict. He describes it as “a senate, in which representatives from different provinces are always in attendance, regardless of whether they should sit quietly or debate.”2 I myself prefer the Thunderdome For Subroutines metaphor, in which competing agendas duke it out for dominance. The urge to inhale, the fear of drowning. The need to defecate, the price of carpet cleaner. Two plans enter: one plan leaves, and runs down the motor nerves, and is put into action.

Morsella calls it PRISM: the Principle of Parallel Responses Into Skeletal Muscle. He claims the acronym works conceptually, “for just as a prism can combine different colors to yield a single hue, phenomenal states cull simultaneously activated response tendencies to yield a single, adaptive skeletomotor action.” Yeah, right. I bet the dude spent as long playing with Scrabble tiles to come up with a cool-sounding name as he did writing the actual paper, but we’ll let that slide.

I find PRISM appealing on a number of fronts: it resonates both with the latest MRI findings and with ancient insights from the 19th century (“Thinking is for doing”, Morsella quotes from 1890). It explains Blindsight, Alien Hand Syndrome, any number of Sacksian neurological disorders as a loss of integration, the result of inadequate crosstalk between systems. It makes me look at mirror neurons in a whole new way. It’s a testable hypothesis, falsifiable, predictive.

 

[Dak]

This doesn't expose subjectivity's strength, but in fact its fragility. Furthermore, the conception of consciousness as an evolutionary phenomenon (not an absolute condition handed down from God to men) forces us to contextualize it in terms of organic development. Prosthetic technologies aside, consciousness has severely hampered our effectiveness as instinctual organisms.

Consciousness is fragile. This doesn't mean that subjectivity is conceptually weakened. I also have to question why place any importance on "the effectiveness of instincts". If instincts had been sufficiently effective, why would we have evolved and maintained consciousness?

Well, your quote about the Austrian School makes it sound as though its adherents believe there can be no useful theory about macroeconomics.

Because you chopped it (and ignored the scarequotes), and/or didn't read the immediately following statement:

Austrian economics holds that these "macro" theories and beliefs are at best useless and ineffective, and at worst damaging. That any understanding of macro must flow up from micro, that the rules do not alter or flip, and that aggregate data very rarely provides the why/how/what, and that even if it did, creating economic "policies" and manipulating the money supply through a monopoly on the medium of exchange merely creates a neverending chain of damaging distortions

 

[Einherjar86]

Consciousness is fragile. This doesn't mean that subjectivity is conceptually weakened. I also have to question why place any importance on "the effectiveness of instincts". If instincts had been sufficiently effective, why would we have evolved and maintained consciousness?

It is conceptually weakened; you just keep saying that it isn't, but this doesn't make it true. Everything that we believed about consciousness until about the nineteenth century conceptualized it a certain way, and all these beliefs are now being challenged if not entirely refuted.

If you mean that subjectivity still exists in the experiential sense, then I agree; but this doesn't mean it remains conceptually true. It changes dramatically and ontologically. You're just choosing to take your phenomenal perception at its word and to hell with the science.

Furthermore, read some of the blog posts I included and you might gain some new information with regard to your "instinct" comment.

Because you chopped it (and ignored the scarequotes), and/or didn't read the immediately following statement:

I did read it. I read the whole thing. The following lines don't change my opinion of it because I don't believe that theories beginning with the micro can offer a complete picture of the macro; such theories remain, methodologically, micro.

 

[Dak]

It is conceptually weakened; you just keep saying that it isn't, but this doesn't make it true. Everything that we believed about consciousness until about the nineteenth century conceptualized it a certain way, and all these beliefs are now being challenged if not entirely refuted.

If you mean that subjectivity still exists in the experiential sense, then I agree; but this doesn't mean it remains conceptually true. It changes dramatically and ontologically. You're just choosing to take your phenomenal perception at its word and to hell with the science.

Furthermore, read some of the blog posts I included and you might gain some new information with regard to your "instinct" comment.

Well of course it changes. I am saying that those changes enhance an understanding of subjectivity and cement it. The process is much richer, with a physical unity.

I read the Watts post and the Bestiary post. I don't see a response to instinct. I don't foresee any position on a primacy of instinct bypassing the initial assumptive stage of some sort parallel to "natural" fetishization - a preference for imagined action patterns in the absence of emergent consciousness.

In response to both, I think this coarse treatment (like "inadvertant consciousness") of the processes uncovered by neuroscience fails to take into account, or properly treat, the interplay between environment, thought, and physical processes, and appears to ignore the increasingly apparent possibility that there may be levels of consciousness (which can rapidly fluctuate, arc, etc) - that a single characterization may be woefully inadequate.

I did read it. I read the whole thing. The following lines don't change my opinion of it because I don't believe that theories beginning with the micro can offer a complete picture of the macro; such theories remain, methodologically, micro.

Well the thing is that the principles scale, so "micro" and "macro" are primarily divided by scale. There should be no radical difference in principles, methodology, etc.(particularly, completely opposite). As scale increases, there are additional aspects that arise that are dealt with that may not be present in smaller scales.

A simple but striking example is that saving is considered important on the micro side, but discouraged and disdained on the macro side. These positions are not compatible, and the principles behind why saving is important and necessary do not magically reverse because of a "macro wand".

 

[Einherjar86]

Well of course it changes. I am saying that those changes enhance an understanding of subjectivity and cement it. The process is much richer, with a physical unity.

I read the Watts post and the Bestiary post. I don't see a response to instinct. I don't foresee any position on a primacy of instinct bypassing the initial assumptive stage of some sort parallel to "natural" fetishization - a preference for imagined action patterns in the absence of emergent consciousness.

So, the references to consciousness as a system that mediates between conflicting instinctual responses aren't concerned with instincts?

In response to both, I think this coarse treatment (like "inadvertant consciousness") of the processes uncovered by neuroscience fails to take into account, or properly treat, the interplay between environment, thought, and physical processes, and appears to ignore the increasingly apparent possibility that there may be levels of consciousness (which can rapidly fluctuate, arc, etc) - that a single characterization may be woefully inadequate.

I appreciate this sweeping categorization of neuroscience. We can return to reality now.

By the way, this isn't to imply that what you're suggesting isn't possible; it's suggesting that neuroscience doesn't preclude this possibility.

Before responding here, please read my post below.

Well the thing is that the principles scale, so "micro" and "macro" are primarily divided by scale. There should be no radical difference in principles, methodology, etc.(particularly, completely opposite). As scale increases, there are additional aspects that arise that are dealt with that may not be present in smaller scales.

A simple but striking example is that saving is considered important on the micro side, but discouraged and disdained on the macro side. These positions are not compatible, and the principles behind why saving is important and necessary do not magically reverse because of a "macro wand".

Of course they aren't compatible, but this doesn't automatically refute theories on a macro scale. If anything, it demonstrates that intervening systems and effects may be causing conditions to change as we move toward more complex states.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Scott Bakker:

http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/speculative-musings/a-bestiary-of-consciousnesses/

Peter Watts:

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=791

Thank you

Dak, step up your article game homeboy

In response to both, I think this coarse treatment (like "inadvertant consciousness") of the processes uncovered by neuroscience fails to take into account, or properly treat, the interplay between environment, thought, and physical processes, and appears to ignore the increasingly apparent possibility that there may be levels of consciousness (which can rapidly fluctuate, arc, etc) - that a single characterization may be woefully inadequate.

This is some post post modern shit right here lol. Right on Dak

 

[Einherjar86]

A single characterization probably is woefully inadequate, which is exactly why Bakker offers several explanations (or "positions") in his "Bestiary."

The snare in this idea comes once we acknowledge that, if there are several "levels" of consciousness that can radically fluctuate, then we remain unconscious of those levels. They exist, as yet, only as theoretical models, and neuroscience is working to develop them.

The following is a quote by Eric Schwitzgebel:

Why did the scientific study of the mind begin with the study of conscious experience? And why, despite that early start, have we made so little progress? The two questions can be answered together if we are victims of an epistemic illusion – if, though the stream of experience seems readily available, though it seems like low-hanging fruit for first science, in fact we are much better equipped to learn about the outside world.

Schwitzgebel is basically insisting on the same premise - that is, that consciousness may consist of multiple frames that we're in the modern process of expanding.

 

[Dak]

Thank you

Dak, step up your article game homeboy

This is some post post modern shit right here lol. Right on Dak

I can barely keep up with current events at the moment. Only like 2 weeks left of summer class, then I might have time but I need to take the GRE in July so...

It might qualify as something postpostpostsomething, but this is merely what I see being uncovered by neuroscience/biology.

If consciousness is contingent a a variety of things, including the physical health of sense and process apparati, and the health of those is often dependent on a number of things like say bacteria colonization, and our physical health fluctuates during the day, or over time, etc., this leads to a very complicated "consciousness".

I appreciate this sweeping categorization of neuroscience. We can return to reality now.

By the way, this isn't to imply that what you're suggesting isn't possible; it's suggesting that neuroscience doesn't preclude this possibility.

I don't know what you think I said. I didn't refer to any preclusions of neuroscience or make a sweeping categorization. Rather a problem with coarse philosophical treatment of consciousness.

A single characterization probably is woefully inadequate, which is exactly why Bakker offers several explanations (or "positions") in his "Bestiary."

The snare in this idea comes once we acknowledge that, if there are several "levels" of consciousness that can radically fluctuate, then we remain unconscious of those levels. They exist, as yet, only as theoretical models, and neuroscience is working to develop them.

I understood those positions in the Bestiary as being submitted as distinct and exclusive possibilities of single characterizations.

What follows is a taxonomy of various possibilities, which I call a ‘bestiary’ to simply remind the reader that it is prescientific

He says nothing here to indicate that the different modes could reside over time in the same subject, or even that different subjects could have different modes (what bestiary could have implied - except that he specifically says it is not used for that purpose).

Schwitzgebel is basically insisting on the same premise - that is, that consciousness may consist of multiple frames that we're in the modern process of expanding.

If that is the topic, that quote is way out of context then, because I don't see where that quote relates. Additionally, "Hard Strategic" looks like a pretty "hard ceiling", where expansion is lateral in terms of speed and memory rather than vertical into a "higher dimension". I'm not dogmatic on that though by any means.

So, the references to consciousness as a system that mediates between conflicting instinctual responses aren't concerned with instincts?

Reflexes and orienting responses aren't generally classified as "instinct" like the Fixed Action Patterns of animals in mating season or something.

Of course they aren't compatible, but this doesn't automatically refute theories on a macro scale. If anything, it demonstrates that intervening systems and effects may be causing conditions to change as we move toward more complex states.

"Micro based" economic principles acknowledge contingency with the phrase ceteris paribus. But macro theorizing specifically contradicts even this - leading to things like the "consumer economy", a debt based economy, etc. It isn't sustainable. A debt based economy doesn't work any better than a debt-based household.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't know what you think I said. I didn't refer to any preclusions of neuroscience or make a sweeping categorization. Rather a problem with coarse philosophical treatment of consciousness.

That's what I think you said.

He says nothing here to indicate that the different modes could reside over time in the same subject, or even that different subjects could have different modes (what bestiary could have implied - except that he specifically says it is not used for that purpose).

So? I don't care what Bakker intended by listing them, I'm simply reminding us that multiple positions of consciousness may exist, as that list demonstrates.

Furthermore, there are so many capacities to what you're saying that you haven't even considered. For instance, that any other level of fluctuating consciousness could even be classified as consciousness. We could classify latent schizophrenic personalities as levels of consciousness; but if we remain unconscious of them 85% of the time, do they really qualify as forms of consciousness?

If that is the topic, that quote is way out of context then, because I don't see where that quote relates. Additionally, "Hard Strategic" looks like a pretty "hard ceiling", where expansion is lateral in terms of speed and memory rather than vertical into a "higher dimension". I'm not dogmatic on that though by any means.

I explained in my previous post how it relates; I mean, I explained how I see it as relating. He says there may be other, better, means of relating to the world. If we're bringing these models to light, then we're exposing them as potential forms of consciousness that may yet remain hidden. I'm by no means ready to say that they classify as consciousness; I'm simply trying to tell you that plenty of cognitive scientists are considering this possibility, not treating consciousness in a "philosophically coarse" fashion.

Reflexes and orienting responses aren't generally classified as "instinct" like the Fixed Action Patterns of animals in mating season or something.

Reflexes are a subcategory of instinct. The primary difference is that fixed action patterns can register on a conscious level. That was what Watts's whole post was about.

"Micro based" economic principles acknowledge contingency with the phrase ceteris paribus. But macro theorizing specifically contradicts even this - leading to things like the "consumer economy", a debt based economy, etc. It isn't sustainable. A debt based economy doesn't work any better than a debt-based household.

This is micro-reductionism. Sorry, I'm at work, no more time to explain. But I'll quote something later.

EDIT:

Reductionism in social science is often illustrated with the methodological individualism characteristic of microeconomics, in which all that matters are rational decisions made by individual persons in isolation from one another. But the phenomenological individualism of social constructivism is also reductionist even though its conception of the micro-level is not based on individual rationality but on the routines and categories that structure individual experience. In neither of these individualisms is a denial that there exists, in addition to rationality or experience, something like 'society as a whole'. But such an entity is conceptualized as a mere aggregate, that is, as a whole without properties that are more than the sum of its parts. For this reason we may refer to these solutions to the micro-macro problem as 'micro-reductionist'.

 

[Dak]

That's what I think you said.

So? I don't care what Bakker intended by listing them, I'm simply reminding us that multiple positions of consciousness may exist, as that list demonstrates.

Furthermore, there are so many capacities to what you're saying that you haven't even considered. For instance, that any other level of fluctuating consciousness could even be classified as consciousness. We could classify latent schizophrenic personalities as levels of consciousness; but if we remain unconscious of them 85% of the time, do they really qualify as forms of consciousness?

To keep from multiquoting and one-liners all condense this. Neuroscience is continually testing the interaction with the environment and the related activity within the neural areas. As we cement the understanding that consciousness is some sort of emergent faculty rather than some separate thing, our understanding is not benefited by coarse treatment like "accidental interference of instinct" or other value laden kneejerk generalizations.

Yes multiple positions exists, but I don't see how "consciousness of types of consciousness" can validate forms of consciousness or invalidate them. If we understand consciousness as a mode of operation at a given time, any "latent" mode is as much consciousness as the next - as they are all contingently latent (although probability fluctuates from one person/minute/situation to the next).

I explained in my previous post how it relates; I mean, I explained how I see it as relating. He says there may be other, better, means of relating to the world. If we're bringing these models to light, then we're exposing them as potential forms of consciousness that may yet remain hidden. I'm by no means ready to say that they classify as consciousness; I'm simply trying to tell you that plenty of cognitive scientists are considering this possibility, not treating consciousness in a "philosophically coarse" fashion.

But some philosophical material reductionists are.

Reflexes are a subcategory of instinct. The primary difference is that fixed action patterns can register on a conscious level. That was what Watts's whole post was about.

Based on my neuro classes, I understand FAPs to reside at higher levels within the NS than reflexes. Muscular reflexes bypass the brain entirely. When the doctor strikes your knee, attempts to hold still do not "tell the reflex not to reflex", rather the attempt is sending a different signal entirely, which does not enter into the reflex loop at all.

Orienting responses are at a higher level, but still do not necessarily engage the prefrontal.

This is micro-reductionism. Sorry, I'm at work, no more time to explain. But I'll quote something later.

EDIT:

Everything is the sum of its parts. Any situation where something seems to be "more than its parts", is an area where all parts have yet to be identified. Additionally, methodological individualism in economics does not pretend one acts within a vacuum. Crusoe does not stay alone on the island, either materially or socially. If we want to call it "reductionist" then so be it, but it currently provides a supreme accuracy compared to any available options.

For Jimmy

http://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-limit-safety-paradox

This is an obvious call to action. Something must be done. We need more laws, more money for enforcement and more citations written - Speed Kills!

Not so fast says a follow up study just completed by National Motorists Association. The study shows the safest period on Montana’s Interstate highways was when there were no daytime speed limits or enforceable speed laws.

 

[Einherjar86]

To keep from multiquoting and one-liners all condense this. Neuroscience is continually testing the interaction with the environment and the related activity within the neural areas. As we cement the understanding that consciousness is some sort of emergent faculty rather than some separate thing, our understanding is not benefited by coarse treatment like "accidental interference of instinct" or other value laden kneejerk generalizations.

This is a value-laden knee-jerk generalization.

Yes multiple positions exists, but I don't see how "consciousness of types of consciousness" can validate forms of consciousness or invalidate them. If we understand consciousness as a mode of operation at a given time, any "latent" mode is as much consciousness as the next - as they are all contingently latent (although probability fluctuates from one person/minute/situation to the next).

If you can't be bothered to consider the consequences of what I've already said, then I can't be bothered to keep repeating it.

Based on my neuro classes, I understand FAPs to reside at higher levels within the NS than reflexes. Muscular reflexes bypass the brain entirely. When the doctor strikes your knee, attempts to hold still do not "tell the reflex not to reflex", rather the attempt is sending a different signal entirely, which does not enter into the reflex loop at all.

This is literally what I said in my last post; but you used more fancy words than I did (which is unusual...).

Everything is the sum of its parts. Any situation where something seems to be "more than its parts", is an area where all parts have yet to be identified.

Nope. This is uninformed and completely incorrect, and it's completely conditioned by what you want to believe about ontological entities in reality. In all honesty, there's absolutely no substantiation to this statement. You're blowing smoke in a room with no light. This gives me nothing to work with and suggests an impotent traditionalism that is useless to any sense of knowledge development.

Read Manuel DeLanda's Philosophy and Simulation, or his A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity; or read Bruno Latour, or Steven Johnson's book Emergence, or Stephen Jay Gould's work on evolution, or George Henry Lewes, or any number of scientists who have dealt with this issue.

I know you're busy with school and all, but you're not giving me arguments with evidence; only personally developed arguments that derive their values from an axiomatic adherence to Austrian economics. This is not a science; not in the hard sense. Until you counter with substantive evidence, I honestly don't feel like this is productive in any way, shape, or form.

http://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-limit-safety-paradox

Really... the National Motorists Association? I'm surprised they didn't find that automobiles improve your sex life.

 

[Dak]

This is a value-laden knee-jerk generalization.

I knew that was coming . But I don't where you can pinpoint the value. It is certainly a kneejerk to a kneejerk. All the anti-consciousness stuff has been entirely built upon a quicksand of instinct preference, without (apparently) to even fully scientifically qualify instinct - merely position it as the opposite of whatever consciousness is perceived to be (without even understand that either).

If you can't be bothered to consider the consequences of what I've already said, then I can't be bothered to keep repeating it.

C'mon Pat. My aspiring specialty in psych isn't Abnormal but I am reasonably familiar with the generalities of schizophrenia. Just because I don't consider [Abnormal] an impassible hurdle doesn't mean I haven't considered it.

This is literally what I said in my last post; but you used more fancy words than I did (which is unusual...).

I'm genuinely curious, what were the fancy words? Not to appear old hat at this (I just had my first specifically neuro class last semester) but this looks really straightforward and I used the word reflex a half dozen times in three sentences.

Nope. This is uninformed and completely incorrect, and it's completely conditioned by what you want to believe about ontological entities in reality. In all honesty, there's absolutely no substantiation to this statement. You're blowing smoke in a room with no light. This gives me nothing to work with and suggests an impotent traditionalism that is useless to any sense of knowledge development.

Read Manuel DeLanda's Philosophy and Simulation, or his A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity; or read Bruno Latour, or Steven Johnson's book Emergence, or Stephen Jay Gould's work on evolution, or George Henry Lewes, or any number of scientists who have dealt with this issue.

I know you're busy with school and all, but you're not giving me arguments with evidence; only personally developed arguments that derive their values from an axiomatic adherence to Austrian economics. This is not a science; not in the hard sense. Until you counter with substantive evidence, I honestly don't feel like this is productive in any way, shape, or form.

I'm confused. You asked me to read philosophy texts but then charged me with not offering hard science. I made a specifically scientific appeal: A sum without all additives identified is missing important elements - not some sort of radical new math. Tautologies may not currently be philosophically significant, but they are scientifically significant - specifically statistically significant (the resurgence of Bayes).

Really... the National Motorists Association? I'm surprised they didn't find that automobiles improve your sex life.

I don't discount your sources just because they deal in X sort of philosophy. Is the EPA going to research this data? The Red Cross? The State of Montana? More to the point: Is the data inaccurate - the increase in accidents, fatalities, etc?

Granted, the increase in absolute numbers isn't that much. But, I wish I could again find the white paper I ran across back in like '07 about how the engineering standard that is supposed to be followed regarding scientifically legitimate speed limits is basically never followed. This is just one of those little tidbits about how speed limits are purely political rather than practical - and at a detriment. If people want to get their panties all up in a bunch because of a mass knifing or shooting (Even 1 life is 1 too many!), then why not look at this? Especially since vehicular death currently outpaces gun deaths - of which suicide is a major driver, vs multi-victim accidents for vehicles.

 

[Einherjar86]

My dismissive attitude was inspired by your sweeping claim that emergence can be discounted because nothing is truly more than the sum of its parts. This is haplessly uninformed, especially regarding all the literature from the past decade on emergent processes.

The claim that a "sum without all additives identified is missing important elements" isn't a scientific claim, Dak; it relies on no scientific evidence and appeals to no studies. There are books, tomes, written on this subject that describe how emergent phenomena cannot be explained by reducing them to reactions between their component parts. This isn't paradoxical or non-tautological; it's simply an acknowledgement that entities on different scales function differently, and that, just as a human being is an assemblage of cells and tissue and genetics, so a city is an assemblage of human beings (among other things). This is a very intense materialist understanding of how large scale entities can emerge and abide by entirely different laws than their components. We wouldn't have social networks or cities without conscious subjectivity; but social networks and cities can't be mapped linearly or according to personal beliefs, as individual human subjects can. They don't function according to "rational" desires.

Manuel DeLanda offers the best description, in my opinion. Of course, he acknowledges that emergent phenomena wouldn't exist without their component parts; but the material ontology of emergent phenomena - their scientific nature, we could say - engages complex models that draw from but develop upon constituent parts. They cannot simply be viewed as a lump sum.

I asked you to read these books - not all of which are philosophy books (Gould was a scientist, as is Johnson, and DeLanda's philosophical models appeal specifically to scientific terminology) - because they provide the evidence that contradict your anti-emergence claim. Finally, I don't understand how you can agree that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon and yet deny the tenets of emergence as such.

As for your other responses: you didn't use fancy words, my apology; you just used more words. But you ignored the main point, which was that you still simply reiterated exactly what I had already said.

As far as values and considerations go, I'm not going to keep going back and forth over this. I'm not claiming some objective space for my own approaches (emergence, poststructuralism, and anti-subjective theories of consciousness certainly wouldn't have developed if it hadn't been for corresponding developments in science and technology), but I believe theories that reflect the complexity of modernity are more useful than archaic notion of the conscious, rational, economic subject.

And for the morning, here's a bit of craziness from Craig Hickman:

Like infonauts in some mathematical virtual ride we inhabit artificial realms of the infosphere as inforgs – informational organisms – like wind-up toys from some vision of the Jetsons CIRCA. 3232. Those scholars who would bind us to the straightjackets of Marx and Freud, Lacan or Heidegger, or any number of other flavors of the month pomo blather or speculative realism that comes to mind, find themselves in the nostalgic tempo of their philosophical forbears rhythmically wishing that it was all as simple as Marx once said it was: class warfare. But Marx never met a transhumanist, nor his alternate - an AI robot wandering the corporate headquarters of Google, or some Japanese executive’s dreamsuit serving cocktails to the elite oligarchs of a new technocapitalism.

In Spirit and Teeth Nick Land would give us a history of the world left out of your history books. A history that lives below the threshold of all those civilized barbarians that haunt our postmodern landscapes of late capitalism. Instead his history wakens the nightmares, the energies of blood and tribal wisdom, of the mythic underbelly that all those positivist scientists and philosophers tried to escape through their ever so subtle purification of the bittersweet linguistic web of lies that bind us all across the Vulcan codes of our dark arcologies. “The migrant blocks of tension summarized in the Freudian unconscious are much less a matter of Oedipus than of the mongols; of those who feed the world of spirit to their horses as they inundate civilization like a flood. If the unconscious is structured like a language it is only because language has the pattern of a plague.”2 We are the plague, the zombie extinction pact, the apocalyptic core of that inhuman kernel of the code/space that keeps returning from its repressive distance in the living cells of those genetic monstrosities of our becoming futures, our habitations among the feral citizens of some lapidary nightworld.