<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Glen and DaveW and all, </div><div><br></div><div>Ok, so I have cc'd in the last correspondence that occurred just before our discussion about who and what is conscious [ness} got forked up. That included comments from DaveW,and Glen. Again, thank you, for helping me along here. <br></div><div><br></div><div>I now see that we need some sort of a working distinction between experiences and anecdotes. Try this: An experience is something that happens (to you). An anecdote is the telling of a series of experiences such that some principle has been established, if only inexplicitly, when the anecdote is done. So David, in his last post, is telling anecdotes and Glen is citing experiences, for a first approximation. This is interesting to me because the line between citing an experience and telling an anecdote seems so tenuous. Intuitively, I want glen to put those experiences in a broader context so I can see why, for him, they indicate self consciousness -- make them more like anecdotes, Glen! Intuitively, I want Dave to anchor his anecdotes in some experiences. More ethology of dragons, and less oneness with the Universe! I think this latter intuition may be based on a distrust of experiences generated the mysteries of grammar. One can say, but one cannot experience having been married to a bachelor; one can say, but not experience the sound of one hand clapping; one can say, but not experience, the experience of not having experiences. To the extent that meditation involves the pushing away of experiences, I am suspicious of it.</div><div><br></div><div>Please see larding below:</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">On Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 9:57<span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span>AM
Prof David West <<a href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm" target="_blank">profwest@fastmail.fm</a>> wrote:<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">dragon stories:<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">my very first experience with peyote, I was 12-13 and living
on the Hopi reservation with my aunt and uncle. A group of boys were given the
peyote as a reward for gathering cottonwood buds for use in a Hopi ceremonial
dance. Of the five of us only one other wanted to try the drug, so I consumed
roughly for doses. A massive thunderstorm was in progress. At some point, a
dragon coalesced from the lightning, thunder, filtered sunlight and began
speaking to me.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">[important interjection: my brain was "making sense' of
an overwhelming number of sensations, some detected by nerve endings, others
generated by frantic neuron firings. Assumed/assuming this is the same kind of
thing that happens when the brain 'makes sense' of the bombardment of
sensations/neural firings that create the "illusion" of an external
world.]<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">we engaged in an apparently long lasting conversation about
my recent experiences in Hopi-land, the various Hopi stories I had been told
that summer and how to interpret them. At some point the dragon used the
phrase, "alarums and excursions;" an idiom I had first encountered
some 8 years prior (pre-grade school) in a book called David and the Phoenix.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">[interjection: till this point my interactions with the
dragon were, as far as I could tell, pretty much identical to the interactions
I might have had with another human being in the 'waking world'. This includes
the implicit assumption that I was interacting with a sentient, conscious, and
self-conscious being.]</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>> I take that your experience was of a normal conversation with a dragon. As you describe it, is seems just that. Because I agree with you, uncontravertibly, that a conversation is evidence, I agree with you that both your and the dragon were both conscious. Whether you both existed is a whole 'nother matter. <<<nst</i></b></span><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Second story:<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">I was exploring the use of pain as a means of inducing an
altered state of consciousness. Four hours of enduring intense and varied pain
administered by a sadistic dominatrix in Salt Lake City, made me very
self-aware with a raspy voice. I began the 9 hour drive to Santa Fe to attend
FRIAM. Along the way my body went into shock and I dealt with that using
meditative techniques. I also was playing a CD of meditative Buddhist chants
that I began to hum out loud with my raspy voice. The result was the altered state
I had been seeking.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Somewhere in Arches National Park, I stopped, stripped naked
and walked down a dry wash where I 'encountered' a campfire and sat down.
Brigham Young was sitting at the periphery of the campfire and we began a long
conversation about Mormon theology and metaphysics, why blacks lost the right
to the priesthood (there were blacks in the priesthood in Nauvoo while Joseph
Smith was alive and that is one of the reasons the Mormons were persecuted by
Missourians), why religions like Christianity, Islam and Mormonism changed from
Feminism to misogyny, education, eternal progression, and a host of other
topics.<span> </span>The conversation ended when I
realized I would be late for FRIAM unless I stopped and resumed my journey.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>> I stipulate that experienced a conversation with BG and that conversation is evidence of his consciousness. <<<nst</i></b></span>
<span></span></p>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">[interjection: both the dragon and Brigham Young were
'illusions' constructed "by the brain" just as the 'illusion' of
ordinary reality. While interacting with them, they were, to me, sentient,
aware, and conscious entities. I attributed sentience, intelligence,
consciousness to them precisely because of the perceived interactions- the
verbal (in my case) and the 'auditorialized' (neuron firings interpreted as
sound) voices (of dragon and Brigham).]<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span>
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>> To be blunt, this just seems like physiobabble. You have no idea what is going on in your brain nor is it relevant to the experience. Becareful not to confuse explanations of experience with the experience itself. <<<nst</i></b></span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">After the fact self analysis of the incidents conclude that
in both cases, the "conversation" was between 'my self' and 'my
memories': of the David in the book and his conversations with the Phoenix in
the book; all of the writings of Brigham Young I had read years before.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">These stories do not, technically bear on where or not
dragons are conscious, but they most definitely bear on whether or not domestic
animals and Nick are conscious—by virtue of the fact that the 'data' and the
'interpretation of the data' are, evidently, the same.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>>On the contrary, if we collected a thousand such stories from different people, I bet every one of them would be conscious, as we have agreed to understand it. <<<nst</i></b></span>
<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">You might make an argument for 'faulty machinery' in my two
stories, but what is gained vis-a-vis our common understanding.
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>>Why on earth would I make such an argument? how would that alter the fact of the experience and our understaning of its relation to consciousness. <<<nst</i></b></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><br><span></span></p>
</div><div>
.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Prof David West<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Jul 22, 2024, 11:41<span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span>AM
(2 days ago)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">to The, Shedd, me<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">We seem to have changed thread titles, but continuing the
discussion ...<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Nick said: "I’m not so clear concerning what our common
understanding of self-consciousness is. Might need some more anecdotes to flesh
that out." In that vein, some additional anecdotes.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">I, is!<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">As a native speaker of English, I read, speak, write, and
think as if this assertion is inescapably true. Weak attempts to learn other
languages have not resulted in much difference, although Arabic created a wisp
of an impression that the assertion might be escaped, and Japanese (the Kanji,
not Hirigana or Katakana) definitely created a deep suspicion. But I was never
fluent enough to 'think' in either language, so I do not know."<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">I. Illusion.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Decades ago, I practiced the Zen Koan meditation, 'what am
I'. Any answer posed to the question is wrong and eliminated; as each answer is
an attribute of a physical organism or some kind of mental/social construct.
Eventually, "I" diminishes to "i" and ultimately to
"Is." The last, however is a property of existence/Reality not
something 'apart from' or 'part of'.<span>
</span>Very difficult to put into words obviously as the experience is an absence
of something, not a thing itself.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>>Here is where I worry that a grammatical quandary is being confused with anexperience. That we can speak of a non-experience does not make it an experience of nothingness. <<<nst</i></b></span>
<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Non-sensationalism<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">While a student at Macalester, some of us went over to the U
of M to experience the absence of sensations in a deprivation tank. Can the
"I"<span> </span>experiencing sensations be
separated and directly apprehended? In my experience, and via reports from
others involved in the experiment, NO. Although greatly diminished, sensations
were still present. Perhaps nerve endings firing at random, perhaps a passing
neutrino triggering the release of a single photon. Something, some vestige of
"I-ness" was still there, still interpreting (poorly) the paucity of
stimuli. Time distortion, "I have been in here for hours, did someone
forget to let me out?"<span> </span>Emotions,
primarily fear and panic. No glimpse of 'me', however.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Non-sensationalism on acid<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Wow! Jung was correct; there is a vast and rich collective
unconscious. "I" am a growing body of all that "I have
been." Both the collective and the idiosyncratic is a joy to wander about,
marvel at, and (re)experience."<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Seeking Self Consciousness<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">On several occasions I have ingested 4-6 Hoffmans [a Hoffman
is 150 microgams, the amount he took on Bicycle Day] of acid, with preparation
akin to that of practitioners of lucid dreaming, i.e., preparing the mind to
have a directed experience. Specifically, to "see," directly
apprehend and experience, one's Self. The journey begins with the same kind of
'tour' of idio-self and collective-self as the previous story. Diving into
one's self, trying to find its locus, to situate it in relation to
everything/anything else becomes impossible. The dimensionless point being
sought constantly expands until it encompasses absolutely everything. A feeling
of omniscience, of ABSOLUTE AWARENESS, is there. But no "self."<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span>
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>> I agree that I fear there is something not-quite-coherent about the concept of self. Why should I be startled when I catch myself in a mirror? "That thing?!!"<<<nst</i></b></span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span>*<span> </span>*<span>
</span>*<span> </span>*<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">These are some of my anecdotes. From them, it might be
concluded that I have no experiences of self-consciousness and therefore may
not be able to participate in any effort to establish a "common
understanding" of same.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">davew<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Jul 22, 2024, 12:25 PM (2 days ago)<span></span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">to friam <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><img border="0" width="1" height="1"></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span></span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Mine run a little more banal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><b><i>NST>>> Glen, could you help me see why one or more of these are illusory of self-awareness. <<<nst</i></b></span>
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">
<br>
Behaviors exhibiting/defining consciousness<br>
• Cat grooming himself<br>
• Dog doing circles for a full minute before lying down<br>
• Cat reflecting on whether he wants to stay in or go out when I crack the
door<br>
• Itch transfer (you have an itch somewhere, you scratch it, and you suddenly
itch somewhere else)<br>
• Losing one's grip on, say, a glass on the table, dropping it, then
immediately catching it<br>
• Tightening a nut just tight enough, but not too much (e.g. when you find
yourself without a torque wrench)<br>
• Trying to deciding whether you've had enough to eat with food remaining on
the plate<span></span></span></p>
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