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Originally Posted by Paracelsus  Could you elaborate upon the above idea? What place is there that is somewhere else? Are you talking about a Platonic plane or Deleuze and Planes of Consitencey? Immenence? Becoming?
Personally just shifting my perceptual awareness of the action of my mind does not give rise to a 'somewhere else.' |
Thanks for your question, sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this. I put forth the proposition / conjecture that experiential consciousness involves a "somewhere else", but not the kind of "somewhere" that we know in daily life with our perceptions of a 3D spatial reality. I put this forth for discussion purposes, not to claim that I have a method to prove this proposition correct. I contend that consciousness does not occur through the physical processes that we now know, which govern what we perceive in time and space. I presented the notion that it will require some "extra science", something not now known (not "known" other than our experience of being conscious), which will require a unique abstraction system in order to relate it to the physical processes that we now know; those known physical processes admittedly intermediate the experience of consciousness (through brain-body-environment dynamics).
Recall that Newton made a great breakthrough in understanding relatively low-complexity systems (stones falling towards the earth and such) by applying an abstraction called mathematics to it. Newton's physics and the math that powered it showed that reality doesn't just happen through what we see; it had some abstract "space" behind it which intermediated actions and relationships such as gravitational force (as described by mathematical laws). Einstein came along and showed that there was even more "abstract space" behind reality, and that this expanded "space", with its increased number of factors and mathematical dimensions, could capture more of the richness of observed reality, out to more extreme conditions unanticipated by Newton (the speed of light and such).
Then came quantum physics -- and now we realized that the world we perceive and can better describe thanks to Einstein with relativity theory and its curvatures, is an emergence effect from a very different set of physical laws and math abstractions going on at a more granular level. Despite the surprise, our view of the world did expand further because of this, although we see that there is much farther to go. The superstring theoritists are presently saying that to fully reconcile the time / space / gravity world with the granular quantum micro world may require up to 11 dimensions. They tell us that although we can't perceive those dimensions in our daily life, they are quite "real" (assuming that superstring M theory holds up; but even if not, alternate candidates to reconcile the quantum world with the gravity-driven level of physical reality will still require some very abstract additions to the superstructure of things, e.g. loop quantum gravity and its spin networks). You can't try to shift your perceptual awareness to capture these dimensions; the main point is that we are locked in to 3D + time perceptual awareness on a phenomenal basis. The only way we "perceive" these things is thru the ability of our Parallel Distributed Processing brain structures to carry out higher and higher levels of thought abstraction, i.e our powers of rational analysis and abstraction building. Again, the wonders of emergence, since that's what PDP / neural networks are all about.
Now we also hear from some physicists that "information" represents a "real" dimension to reality, one that is needed to expand the structured understanding of reality (i.e., "physics") to more complex systems, getting up to the level of large-scale chemical molecule reactions and reproducing life, DNA and such.
What I am guessing, and that's all it is, is that extending physical understanding even further, to the point of consciousness, will require even further kinds of "new space", new abstractions that are eventually seen to not just exist in our minds as descriptions, but to best be looked at as what we call "real". (Yes, just a continuation of the mediaeval debate about universals). Just as now we do best to consider the light speed limit and the Plank limit on how small something can be as "real", just as real as your morning cup of coffee. But again, you won't be able to shift your perceptual awareness to experience this "new space", just as you can't phenomenally perceive Newton's math laws, Einstein's relativity, the phase space of quantum entanglement, the extra dimensions of superstring M-theory, or the information substrate that causes "it from bit" in John Wheeler's words.
And what will be "in" this new abstraction space? More questions: Just what in that "space", just what about it makes the difference between the "zombie" and the conscious human? Just what about it turns off during parts of my sleep cycle, throttles way down when I'm in a boring, unchallenging task like driving to work, and comes to full effect when I'm engaged in a peak experience or a peak challenge to my being? Just why is my behavior different depending on what happens in this "phase space"? And if behavior, then also the mind states that drive that behavior, i.e. my beliefs, feelings, decisions, etc.?
Is all of this Platonic? Well, when Newton showed that reality has a mathematical substrate to it, Plato's forms were just a bit less ridiculous. And given all the abstract substrates that have been added by science and physics as it has expanded what it can explain, now about to subsume information as a "reality", we're getting closer and closer to the notion of "forms". But not necessarily various and sundry forms, e.g. a form for a boot, a form for an apple, a form for pie, a form for pencil, etc. No, it's going to be some ultimate kind of form. Something to do with being, the nature of pure being itself. I think that is where physics is taking us, and if and when it can and does get around to subsuming consciousness, we're going to be a lot closer to whatever that pure existence is all about. Why? Because consciousness just seems like a good candidate for "what the universe is here for". (And yes, I realize that some big physics theories postulate billions of universes, with only a tiny fraction being able to support conscious life. But just one in a trillion trillion is a big difference overall from zero. Trial and error.)
Again, just some hunches on my part; no pretense here to being able to win a debate with this.
Jim G.
An Eternal Student Of / For Life 
07-14-2008, 04:55 PM
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