Qualia and trees

[Explorer]

I think you need to define what you mean with 'feeling' and 'pain' first.
In that other thread that was mixed up in very confusing ways, sometimes meaning 'physical reaction to damage', sometimes 'emotional stress', and mostly something that that kept changing meaning. So, could you define as exactly as possible what you mean by those terms first?

I started this thread with the intent of giving Nico some starting point for something he wouldn't want to say in the other thread. Nico, somehow, disappeared and the suspension literally pulled my feet away. Because of that, I forgot to post the answer to Nico's question. Perhaps, we can get him back in here, when the idea of trees is being touched, again.

Nico, in the face of what I think about the existence, reality or whatever of qualia,
"pain" is the fact that "it hurts",
"feeling" is the fact that someone is feeling something somehow. And that's the question, isn't it? What is meant by "feeling"? To ask for a definition of it is, imho, to divert a question into a labyrinth of useless definitions. Like "define define", for example.

The fact that I made that connection was not intended, though, to keep You, Nico, away from the topic. I'm still very interested in what You think. That's why I started this thread for. If my choice of connection did indeed keep You away because it was made impossible to share Your thoughts in this thread, feel free to voice Your thoughts in here, may they be off-topic or not.

You do me too much honour, sir... I don't think deep thoughts about the feelings of trees.

My intention with these questions was not to come up with strict definitions, but more about "what does everybody mean with those terms?", because in the other thread everybody seemed to mean something else by 'feelings'. And some people even kept changing their meanings from post to post, and I can't discuss like that, because my answers depend on what is meant.

My reason for asking to move the subject here is not a philosophical one.
The thread became too silly for me. When people claim that they find brains in animals guts, so that trees must feel pain, or something along those lines, then I switch off. There is a limit to how much stupidity I can handle. (For godsake, just turn around the animal 180 degrees, the part where you find brains is the top end, the part where you find the sh*t is the bottom end). I can't really say things like that in a thread where every opinion is supposed to be equal. Something that I don't agree with anyway, because spreading stupidity, ignorance and falsehood should always be punished with tar and feathers.
That is why I wanted to continue here, Skeptical Druidry is self-cleaning in that respect. (and the proof of the pudding is those people didn't follow us here).

As to the content of the matter:
I go a long way in accepting that we share properties with other lifeforms. Our DNA clearly shows that, and I'm sure that at the cellular level we will find more common properties. Because the deeper we look, the further we look back in time, just like in astronomy where we look back in time further and further the deeper we look.

To get a rough idea of what qualities we share with other lifeforms, we could look at our common ancestors.

The time of our common animal ancestor (apes/primate) is not nearly as far back as the time of our common ancestor with regard to plants and trees.
For that we have to go back to the cellular level, to a time that multicellular organisms probably didn't even exist. Before the time that chlorophile emerged, the organic stuff that does photosynthesis and that defines plants as plants, and the rest of us as animals. Because our common ancestor was neither plant, nor animal, just a cell. And we can't share more with trees than what was basically present in that single cell. Most of it encoded in the DNA.
That cell didn't have emotions, no brain, no feelings, no senses.

Animals evoluated to become complex multicellular biological structures, with high energy requirements, totally dependent on other lifeforms for nourishment, moving freely over the planet, needing complex mechanism to do all that. Like senses, brains, warning-systems, emotions. Even intelligence, fantasy, spirituality.
Plants went into another direction, a lot more independent, they only need light, carbondioxide and minerals from the soil. Simple and efficient, without the need for complex steering mechanisms and survival strategies.

The factor of evolution also meant something else, interdependency.
Plants and trees produce a strong corrosive and deadly poison. They spread so far and wide that they totally poisoned the entire planet. The atmosphere changed, and only the ocean remained safe for animals. Until the animals changed, adopted, evoluated, to withstand that poison. Up to a point where they became totally dependent on that poison that plants produce. It is called oxygen. This is just to show how far trees and humans are separated, both in time as in makeup. We (animals) had to evoluate to be able to even live in the same space with them. But we did that, we adapt, and that IS a quality all life shares, because life that didn't adapt has gone extinct.

The same evolutionary force of adaptation, also means that both animals and trees must adopt to changing circumstances. And sometimes that may lead to a common factor that can't be traced back to our common ancestor (that cell). Perhaps like the build-in flexibility of our bones and their branches, caused by all of us living on a planet with a certain gravity.
Things like emotions, awareness, intelligence belong to the animal line of evolution, you can more or less trace it back. Like primates have more of it than rats, who have more of it than snails, who have more of it than bacteria.

I don't rule out that there could still be something unknown and unexpected at the cellular/DNA level. Like, does something happen when many many cells form an single organism? Do you then get some sort of complex network with unexpected properties? But that is pure speculation, and it is a mistake to equate that to our perception. We perceive with our senses and brains, and trees just don't have all that.

Disclaimer: I say all this from the top of my head, it is not proof, just education and common sense.

[Attila]

Very well done heddwen! I cant imagine the pain level of that nor the anxiety, when one considers that anxiety usually enhances pain that must take a high level subjectivity to attain.

[Attila]

Nico

I thought fishes breathed oxygen from the water? I don’t know though.

First thing is that qualia may not be reliant upon brains, it seams that neuronal activity determines when qualia occur in us, turn the light out in the brain and we get no qualia - apparently. That said we still cannot qualify quale as part of physical systems, so it seams that they are ‘something else’ which responds to them. If that is the case then we need to think about them as if like there is an ocean of consciousness which is stimulated by occurrences in the material [which itself is a facet of the same thing ~ whatever that is], so qualia may occur wherever the right conditions for them are, I doubt plants feel pain but the do react to their environment and have let us say a ‘sexual’ relationship with bees and other insects.

On a druidic level I have no doubt that plants have consciousness of a sort [esp if it is universal which I feel it must be [as it is not physical]], and I see bee faces in flowers because their consciousness wants to be perceived like that. I don’t think they feel pain but they probably feel something like what people who don’t feel pain feel, in other words we think pain is an extreme of our sense of touch/feel, but it is not, there are specific genes for it which are not present in people who don’t feel pain.

[Heddwen]

Very well done heddwen! I cant imagine the pain level of that nor the anxiety, when one considers that anxiety usually enhances pain that must take a high level subjectivity to attain.

Well Attila, I wouldn't swop the experience for the world. But I do find the concept of pain threshold fascinating and how some people find the use of hypnosis and acupuncture can help with this. The human body is such a remarkable thing considering all of the extremes that it can go through, we are such survivors

[Dendrias]

I once had a talk with a paraplegic about pain. He said that he didn't feel pain in his lower body, but had some sensation of cold when there was a reason for pain. His quale of "pain" might have changed, but the "feeling" was still there, although he couldn't "feel" anything, down there.

[Attila]

Heddwen

I wouldn't swop the experience for the world. But I do find the concept of pain threshold fascinating and how some people find the use of hypnosis and acupuncture can help with this. The human body is such a remarkable thing considering all of the extremes that it can go through, we are such survivors

A lady once told me ‘the pain is bearable because its so productive’, so presumably where pain is pain genetically its experience can be variable. My guess is that if humans were not spiritual beings there would be no subjectivity ~ what would there be to protect!

…such things are neither here nor there of course, I would say that and materialist would contradict it and we get nowhere, however there remains the question of what qualia are etc, so I have made an image [below] to simplify the matter ~ though it probably complicates it further lols.


everyone

Here’s what I posted on a philosophy forum [am awaiting replies that arent trying to wriggle out of it lol]

As I am a very visual thinking chap, here’s an image showing a simplified view of vision [below].

Does the memory record only what’s inside the box? As with the ‘no quale’ theory ~ presumably.

Are quale of the brain [inside the box], of the consciousness [the mirror], and of the external input [the traffic lights outside the box. Perhaps quale are in every example?

Does the conscious mirror have quale within its reflection, ~ that would perhaps be like saying a mirror has the light reflected upon it but within it somehow?

An alternative would be where consciousness exists amongst what is going on in the box [brain and quale production area], or exists universally. However if we conclude that quale are not entirely of the consciousness, where do they exist? In one or more aspects or universally?

click on link to see image;

notw; the picture is to show how images can be inverted inside or outside the brain ~ as per dennetts thought experiment.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3130 ... memory.jpg
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[Dendrias]

Nice picture. Though I don't understand it. I don't understand Your text, as well, but that's my problem, not Yours.

One question:
Can qualia be possibly universal?

One annotation:
As I have some sort of problem with discerning some colours (don't ask me for the word), I can discern the lower two lights in all of the traffic lights on second sight. That's why questions of perception catch my interest so often.

[Heddwen]

I once had a talk with a paraplegic about pain. He said that he didn't feel pain in his lower body, but had some sensation of cold when there was a reason for pain. His quale of "pain" might have changed, but the "feeling" was still there, although he couldn't "feel" anything, down there.

Merry meet Dendrias, I was just thinking about the climber that had to amputate his own arm when it was trapped under a rock, also I have a tetraplegic friend who feels this phantom pain/senations in her limbs also. What an interesting and joyful thread.
Hello Attila, lol I'm not sure that I quite understand the diagram, could you talk me through it i'm not familiar with Dennet.

Peace and love

[Dendrias]

What an interesting and joyful thread.

Well, merry meet to You, too.
Talking about amputating arms and tetraplegics feeling phantom pains, You nonchalantly say: "What a joyful thread."

I'm not quite sure whether "my" paraplegic felt it in his legs. I understood that he was feeling whatever he felt ... well, somewhere. But that was 15 years ago. (Man, I've gotten old! )

[Attila]

dendrias

This optical illusion may interest you, see if you see the full colour image ~ I think it will help show if your condition is optical or subjective [maybe]…
http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.php

I am trying to work out if quale are universal, in the image it should be possible for me to get philosophers to actually make an answer upon this. Usually they insist quale are purely of the mind, some even say they don’t exist [like redness don’t exist! Lols].
The image is based on Dennett’s thought experiments where he inverts colours to show that they only exist in the mind, but my aim is to show that by his own reasoning [that quale don’t exist] quale must be in the world as he showed they are not of the consciousness [well apparently he showed that, I am not so sure].

It seams most likely to me that they are universal, I have yet to get an answer to the contrary.

Apparently there is one gene for pain, if you don’t have it you don’t feel it. Presumably the quale can still be presented in the mind, but in the case of a lady who had never felt pain, she didn’t experience it at all. Some people still feel pain well after the injury has subsided.

Heddwen

Horizon made an interesting program on the subjectivity of pain recently, it is probably on bbc I-player. On it there was a chap who had to cut his own arm off too, he said he didn’t feel anything even as he was sawing through the bone, it seams his brain had adjusted knowing there was no other choice but death or do that.

I made a link on Dennett’s paper earlier, basically he showed [apparently] that qualia don’t exist, the whole process can be mapped from the eye to the memory without a break. I cant even imagine how anyone could arrive at such a conclusion, so I made the image to challenge that. Somewhere in that picture colour qualia actually exists, it doesn’t matter where materialist choose to not see it, it must be in reality somewhere. This leaves philosophers with only the options that quale are of the world, are universal, or in the consciousness ~ which means consciousness exists!

[Heddwen]

Okie Dokie

[Attila]

This is a clip of where I have got to so far… I think I have snapped the materialists argument in two, k’chah! [karate chop lols]

It would be peculiar if consciousness and/or quale only existed in our minds, what does that mean? you see they have to be produced by something or already be there [in which case both are of the world], if electromagnetic systems ‘produce’ them that would be similar to saying that light-waves can produce colour. We have no evidence at all that this is the case! Surely in experiment we would notice changes if electromagnetism produced something else, anything else.

This means specifically that our very basis from which we presume the subjectivity of mind, is self contradicting. That is to say; we look at light and don’t see colour, we look at the eye and it sees a black and white image that it paints as a 3D colour image, then we say that the mind is subjective, that colour quale and our entire experience are in the mind. Then we/they state that there are only the physical systems and quale don’t exist, thus there is no colour that the mind would be subjectively seeing ~ see the contradiction! The things which make the mind subjective don’t actually exist, hence the mind is not subjective by them [that is if it still can be by the physical apparatus].

Optical illusions show that the brain produces the image we see, then they say that there is nothing which the brain is producing nor that the consciousness is experiencing ~ as there is no consciousness other than the physical systems!

It stands to reason that the set of objects need a medium of communication, quale perform that task much as information does e.g. in the holographic theory [from what I gather]. Info alone doesn’t do the trick though, fortunately we are not automatons and we know for sure that quale exist. The only testimony to the accuracy of qualia is perhaps in their direct correlation to a thing ~ even where that quale can then be changed and become misinformed, primarily they are the language of primacy.
Quale could possibly even be seen primarily as the oneness amongst the transient multiplicity, and by that there is a communicative layer from where to transmit between two or more elements of the transient, the two qualia of each element must merge, thus creating the secondary nature of qualia ~ possibly colour quale etc is that.

[Dendrias]

Well, as usually, Attila, it would take a long time to thing about it - for me. My "condition" is "optical", but I was astonished to see the colour-image. Nice thing, thank You, Attila.

BTW: Yesterday's newspaper featured a review of an PLoS ONE-article about "body and self". Risking to come away too far from trees, I still think that Nicholaas' blitz-assault at the mind-body-problem has to be given some ground to walk upon; of course, this is not only touching the field of "perception", but will be totally mind-altering the way we see the sooo objective self-perception.

PLoS ONE says:
a perceptual illusion in which a rubber right hand, placed beside the real hand in full view of the participant, is perceived as a supernumerary limb belonging to the participant's own body.
Of course, no one has a second right arm, but the perception of one's body by an illusion, was what cought my eye. Participants do not only err in not knowing which arm is their own ... they feel it belonging to their body while knowing it can't be.
A mind consisting of only bodily, i.e. material components like brain cells, nervous system et al., that's my theory, cannot possibly think that there is a third arm. Every participant should see, that one arm cannot be his own and feel so. If they haven't got a third arm, they cannot think that they have, right? But by intrigueing the perception, the mind is altered. So, in contrast to what the body really is (two-armed) they perceive their body, they feel their body to be three-armed. How comes, if mind is a function of the body?

[Attila]

…So, in contrast to what the body really is (two-armed) they perceive their body, they feel their body to be three-armed. How comes, if mind is a function of the body?

I agree though strangely this is what some people use to say there is no mind, that is, because it can be tricked and changed by physical input, it is then part of that physical being. The general thing in philosophy at the moment is that we cannot know anything and are subjective beings [physically that is]. I have suggested that [as above] they cant have it both ways, if the mind is entirely subjective it would have nothing to base the world on, and hence would not be able to create the world.

Equally I think we can show that qualia are not just mental e.g. the colour red may be mental as we experience it, but the actual thing ‘redness’ is not that mental perception and hence is of the world. Once we take qualia out of the mental realm and into the world [though they are both], then we can pretty much say that the holistic world is real. Nature then has a world of qualia both mental and holistic [but as real as atoms] to work with along side its physical components.

As by all this consciousness is in essence neither holistic nor physical then it is only constrained by those things in terms of its relationships with them. In other words it is ‘out of body’ ~ a universal entity, then where it correlates info with the physical it is in-body or of the body.

My initial feelings on this is that; in life we form a kind of quale-matrix which can due to the ‘out of body’ essential nature, move from body to body as in rebirth. Whereas the imprint it leaves in the world I feel is compartmentalised ~ much as the ancients say of ‘the ancestors’. in longbarrows parts of the skeletons were heaped in arrangements, as if to de-individualise the ancestor spirit, and to place areas of spirit into differing boxes - let us say.

I will take an intuitive leap here, and suggest that the ancestor in one respect is like a continually changing mould for the creation of new souls. This for example when you get more births than when all the reborn’s have been re-incarnated, and naturally also for the original selves. I expect nature generally is much like this and has an evolutionary nature ancestor spirit and original self, these things are the oldest beliefs in the book, so its funny how it all comes back around again eh!

[Attila]

ok here's my conclusion on this issue after much consideration;

all of these must exist weather or not theay are physical, and only objects do exist in the materialists perception.

Object > info > Qualia < > info < > consciousness < > mind.

< = purely of the mental realm
> = causality derived in the physical

there must be something that understands information and can change it on a purely informational level, and only consciousness can do that ~ hence it must exist!
qualia are both produced on the mental plain via info, and on the physical plain via info [even though info doesnt exist physically].

[Ice]

I think evidence is important too, Attila

[Attila]

I think evidence is important too, Attila

Well we know that neither qualia nor information ‘exists’ in the physical world, and it seams pretty certain that consciousness also does not ~ even though it mostly only occurs in response to physical stimuli.

There must be something that knows and works with information, because we know info ‘exists’ [is real though not physically existent] at least in our minds. Consciousness is that something, neuron bundles are an electrical matrix but that doesn’t describe what consciousness is, any more than light-waves define qualia of colour.

As for evidence, you do realise you are asking me to prove that something exists in the material world when it clearly does not, and by using the instrumentation of that?
I think you will find I cannot and neither can materialists prove such things are in the material world for the very same reason.

If you think you or anyone else can then go right ahead.

[Jake]

You know what would be awesome?

If people who obviously know next to nothing about brain physiology and function (and persist in describing it as if it's a fuse box) would either take the time to learn a little about the subject or stop commenting on it.
/rant

[Attila]

I have read a couple of papers so as to know the basics of what neurons and matrixes are, but no it is not my specific field. If anyone does want to prove me wrong rather than indeed rant, then feel free to do so. Begin with this;

What is information and does it exist!? If anyone can show me where it exists in the physical world then prey do so.

From a current debate over at ilp philosophy forums;
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi ... 6#p2204636

TheStumps
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There is no such thing as information in the way that you are thinking of it.
I will follow this up with the below.
And how is this not present in the physical world?

Only objects [particles, fields and waves [and qm effects etc] ‘exist’ in the physical world. I would go so far as saying they also don’t exist, that energy doesn’t ‘exist‘, but that’s another debate or will will over-extend this one to exasperating levels.
Information ~ ‘how I am thinking of it’ ~ literally, exists in my mind, and with that info I can change physical things like sound waves ~ if I say something after I have changed e.g. what was said to me.
All the info in a database on a computer does not exist until we imagine it as info in our minds, surely we can say that all the ‘info’ in the world takes effect in the world?
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I have a wheel. On the wheel is a tooth. The wheel sits in a wheel house. On the wheel housing sits a hole that fits the tooth that is on the wheel. In the hole is a spring lever that fastens to a line. The line runs through a pulley and ends fastened to a bell.
The wheel and tooth can then be referred to as a gear.
When the gear rotates so that the tooth of it rests in the hole, then the lever recognizes the presence of the tooth by the laws of physics and reacts to it according to its properties and limitations therein.
This causes the line to pull, which traffics kinetic information to the resting pulley which recognizes the line's motion and reacts by facilitating the movement of the line according to it's properties and limitations.
This allows the line to continue the transfer of its kinetic information down to the bell, where fastened, draws upon the bell which recognizes the tension and reacts according to its properties and limitations.

Ya, that’s the ‘mechanistic info’ I was talking about, it isn’t really info et al, it is merely objects changing shape and interacting. Where is there information passed? And what is kinetic info? I can understand kinetic energy being passed but not kinetic info, so you will need to flesh that one out for me.
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This is a diagram of information.
It is a set circuit that does not have much in the way of variable reaction or recognition of the contained information, but it is an example of the same sequential concepts that take place in everything in reality; including our own brain.
Memory, for instance, is essentially the process of carving a hole in a wheel that when recalled will revolve to fit the tooth into the grove that was placed originally for storage*.

Nice analogy*. I completely agree with this part, memory is a mass of neurons ~ polarised electromagnetic cells, which when grouped together in a given matrix [as like the tooth and hole in the wheel] enable the consciousness to ‘read’ them as corresponding information! Without the physical aspect the memory wouldn’t occur, and without the consciousness that mass of charged particles would be nothing more than like a load of batteries linked together. What does a memory mean if not info ~ which can then be turned into visual and emotional sensation in the mind, we could say that it is not memory until info has been extrapolated and that in actual fact, the physical memory is not in and of itself memory. …naturally the consciousness would not attain that info without its material servants, and I wouldn’t deny that, in fact all I want here is for nothing to be denied!
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It's actually so massive and dynamic that we can't fathom the totality of reactions taking place.

For sure, I could also envisage the mass of transmitters in all the world computers, but in the end they are simply switches [hence 01 binary]. What I am saying is that a great complexity does not denote anything more than the simplest operation of the same ilk.
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Keeping in full attention that transfer of energy is information by the definition of physics because without transfer of energy you have nothing.

It is not information it is the transfer of energy [that alone] which mechanistically changes that which it is placed upon. What specifically is information in terms of the transfer of energy? Do energy interactions create info or are all energy forms simply a polarity, and they change according to how one arranges the magnets - so to say.
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In Language we like making it seem as though information is unique from energy when there is no distinct difference between the two at all. The only difference is the conception of assessment by our linguistic cognitive for functional use and reaction to the stimuli of the interactive.

I see the linguistic cognitive much like I see the memory, language does not exist in it! Language necessarily requires information to be itself.
We see a book and declare it "information" because it contains things in it that give us the opportunity of association with memory, and new memory...that is to say, give us knowledge...but memory, as covered above, is nothing more than a hole in a wheel that recognizes the tooth when it passes over it and seats it to trigger the lever's response.

For me this proves my point; the words in a book have to be recognised as information in order for them to mean anything other than shapes. You have to have conscious interaction as part of the process of reading or the shapes on a page would take no effect. How can an electromagnetic matrix ‘know’ something? Knowing is surely informational.
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Throw an electrical charge into it and watch that bastard race across where it can find the least resistance.

that’s just electrons which have a positive charge moving between a mass of objects which also have positive or negative charges, one repels the other and the electrons move according to the path of least resistance from opposite charges. It is pushed on by a greater macroscopic polarity in the electrical circuit.
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Then shrink that to our brain size.
Congrats, you more or less have us: an electrochemical responsive network.

No, I have every part of the mechanism which serves we the consciousness. None of that thinks nor feels, something else is utilising it to such purposes.
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"Information" is simply exchange.

Huston we have a problem; if that was true then we would not know what holistic objects are, we would only be able to derive information from electromagnetic frequencies, then they alone wouldn’t tell us much. We would only know different electrical charges and collections of them, so no qualia et al, no colour in the world etc.

[Jake]

If anyone does want to prove me wrong rather than indeed rant, then feel free to do so.

That's a tall order since I rarely have the slightest idea of what you're talking about in this thread. And I suspect this may be something we have in common.

Begin with this;

I'd rather begin with this:

neuron bundles are an electrical matrix

Maybe you could explain why you think neuron bundles are an electrical matrix. But please first explain what an "electrical matrix" is.

And if it's not too picky, I have to say it would be great if your explanation avoided non-statements like

"Knowing is surely informational."

Thanks in advance.