I take refuge in one dreaded chore to escape another, more dreaded chore…
On Monarchism and Morality
As a Canadian and British citizen (left-leaning), I am sentimentally and aesthetically a royalist, as long as the royals conduct themselves in a way that is aesthetically and ethically positive (and not too much public money is spent on them).
A monarch with a historic pedigree can, like a flag or soil, be a more palpable symbol for a populace to identify with, and take heart in (especially in hard times) than an appointed or elected figurehead. (My native Hungary’s current presidential fiasco is a case in point.)
But nothing excuses a monarch who is old enough to know better from going out and wantonly shooting elephants (whether or not his people are groaning under a heavy financial yoke).
If the British royals ever did anything like that today, I would immediately become a republican.
(I’m rather afraid that if I took a closer look at current royals’ domestic hunting, I might already become as anti-sovereignist, with reason, as the separatists [ironically calling themselves “sovereignists”] among my fellow-quebeckers already are, without reason, alongside Canadian and Australian republicans, likewise without reason.)
Julian Barnes: An Ending Not Yet Quite Sensed
Julian Barnes:
The Sense of an Ending
Occasionally strained, contrived, and far-fetched, but overall the evocation of the oversensitivity cum insensitivity of youth rings true even if the recovered-memory syndrome of an elderhood Julian Barnes has not quite succeeded in channeling (an ending not yet quite sensed?) does not.
Egocentricity never quite shaken, all efforts notwithstanding.
Ratio Praecox
When I was taught introductory philosophy by Rafael Demos, and he explained that philosophy was invented to wean Greeks from irrationality and teach them to think rationally, I thought (stupidly): How silly and anachronistic to still be teaching philosophy today! After all, humankind outgrew irrationality long since the Greeks…
By the same token, after the fall of colonialism, and then of the Iron Curtain, when some argued that it will take generations for the newly liberated peoples to understand and practice democracy, I thought (stupidly) How silly! Democracy is as self-evident as rationality…
Presence Makes the Heart Grow Fainter
Googled it. No one seems to have coined it yet. So laying claim on it.
Unfelt Feelings (and Unexplained Correlations)
Bernie Baars: “Stevan, I think that may be the key to our disagreement. The evidence (and scientific consensus) regarding unconscious knowledge is simply overwhelming.”
It may well be (part of) the key to our disagreement, but not at all because I question the evidence concerning unconscious “knowledge”!
Unconscious knowledge is the unconscious possession of information (data, capacity, propensity). I have no problem at all with unconscious information, nor with any unconscious function.
My problem (the “hard” problem) is with conscious function, including conscious information (data, capacity, propensity).
If all “knowledge” were unconscious, there would be no hard problem, and we would not be discussing consciousness here (just perhaps the “easy” functional matter of voluntary versus involuntary behavior and accessible versus inaccessible internal information).
And it is precisely for that reason that I keep harping on the fact that it is only because we allow ourselves to keep invoking weasel-words for consciousness (“awareness, subjectivity, intentionality, mentality, 1st-personality, qualia,” etc. etc.) — which are really just vague and hopeful synonyms — that we keep fooling ourselves that we are making some headway on the hard one.
To keep ourselves honest and grounded, we should ditch all the other locutions and stand-ins for “conscious” and just resort to “felt” vs. “unfelt”: That would make the question-begging (and even the incoherence) transparent whenever we inadvertently fall into it.
And the question-begging and incoherence here was precisely the notion of an “unconscious headache” — which, when stated transparently, without equivocation, would be an “unfelt ache,” which amounts to an “unfelt feeling”: a contradiction in terms (like an uncurved curve or a colorless color).
Feeling (not “intentionality”) is the “mark of the mental.” What is not felt is not conscious. And the hard problem is to explain how and why anything at all is felt (hence mental), anywhere, ever.
Information accessibility is not what it’s about. There would be accessible as well as inaccessible information inside an insentient (= unconscious) robot (as well as inside a hypothetical “zombie,” for those who are fond of those sci-fi fantasies of speculative metaphysicians).
Bernie Baars: “Autobiographical memories are unconscious (until recalled).”
And the problem is not with the fact that the stored information is there, nor the fact that it is used and plays a causal role in adaptive function, nor even with the fact that it can be made explicit and verbalized. The problem is with the fact that recall is conscious recall — i.e., felt recall — rather than just recall!
Bernie Baars: “So are unaccessed ambiguities in language, vision, and other functions.”
Right. And the problem is not with access, but with conscious (felt) access.
Bernie Baars: “The cerebellum is unconscious; so are basal ganglia functions.”
Indeed. And the problem is not with cerebellar and basal ganglion functions, but with conscious (felt) functions.
Bernie Baars: “The corticothalamic system (under the proper conditions) is not.”
Translation: Corticothalamic functions (some, sometimes) are felt rather than unfelt.
The Problem: How and Why?
(Otherwise, all you have is an unexplained correlation, not a causal explanation of how and why some functions are felt functions.)
Bernie Baars: “Habituated input is unconscious. Automatisms are unconscious. Implicit motivation, implicit learning, incubation, preconscious perception, long-term ego functions, and yes, demonstrated cases of suppressed thoughts are unconscious.”
All just fine. And no problem.
And if all functions were like that (unfelt) there would be no problem at all.
But they’re not.
And that’s the (hard) problem.
Bernie Baars: “The evidence is simply enormous. You can be a radical subjectivist on those matters, but you will be in a small and diminishing minority. And what’s worse, you lose a ton of explanatory power.”
I have no idea what a “radical subjectivist” is!
I am just pointing out (each time) that it is indeed a problem to explain how and why all functions are not unfelt: to explain how and why we are not zombies, if you like. (We certainly aren’t: how and why not? What’s the functional advantage? What’s the causal difference?)
The absence of an answer (or the failure even to face the problem) is the absence of explanatory power.
Bernie Baars: “I think this may be the key to our mutual incomprehension. (Decontextualized comprehension is also unconscious).”
I agree that there is indeed misunderstanding here, but I am not sure it is mutual! I think I understand completely what you are saying, Bernie, but I am not sure you are understanding — or appreciating the implications of — what I am saying (about the failure and indeed the vacuity of all attempts at causal explanation of consciousness).
(I have no idea what “decontextualized comprehension” means, but the problem, as usual, is conscious [i.e., felt] comprehension, not comprehension simpliciter, which is simply the possession of information and the capacity to act accordingly — including, if necessary, to verbalize it!)
Harnad, S. (1992) There is only one mind body problem. International Journal of Psychology 27(3-4) p. 521
Harnad, Stevan (1995) Why and How We Are Not Zombies. Journal of Consciousness Studies 1:164-167.
Harnad, S. (2000) Correlation vs. Causality: How/Why the Mind/Body Problem Is Hard. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(4): 54-61.
Harnad, S. & Scherzer, P. (2008) First, Scale Up to the Robotic Turing Test, Then Worry About Feeling. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine 44(2): 83-89
Harnad, S. (2011) Doing, Feeling, Meaning And Explaining. In: On the Human.
Consciousness: QED
I don’t think that Bernie Baars — in “The Biological Cost of Consciousness” — has succeeded in explaining the biological function of consciousness — i.e., what is it for? what does it do? what could not get done without it, and why? He has simply reaffirmed that consciousness is indeed there, and correlated with a number of biological functions — so far inexplicably.
The problem (a “hard” one) is always the same: How and why is some given biological function executed consciously rather than unconsciously? It is “easy” to explain why and how the function itself (seeing, attending, remembering, reporting, etc.) is biologically adaptive, but it is “hard” to explain how and why it is conscious, hence how and how it is biologically adaptive that it is conscious.
In considering consciousness Bernie also falls into the very common conflation between (1) the accessibility of information and (2) consciousness of the information. Information is just data, whether in a brain or in a radio, computer, or robot. To explain the function of the fact that information is accessible (hence reportable) is not to explain the function of the fact that the access is conscious access.
What — besides accessibility — is the “mark” of information being conscious? The fact that it is felt: it feels like something to have access to some information. And it feels like nothing to have access to other information. The information to which a computer or robot has access, be it ever so useful to whatever it is that the computer or robot can or does do, is not conscious. It does not feel like anything to have access to that information. The same is true for the information to which our cerebellum has access when it keeps our balance upright, or the information to which our medulla has access when it keeps us breathing, or keeps our hearts beating, especially while we are in deep (delta) sleep. When we are awake, sometimes some of that information does become conscious, in that we feel it, and then usually some further functional flexibility is correlated with it too (including reportability, in the human case). But the question remains: why and how are some states of informational access felt and some not? and what further functional benefit is conferred by the fact that the felt ones are felt? What is the causal function of the (unexplained) correlation?
Limited resources are limited resources, and resource costs are just resource costs. The fact that our brains can have access to — and can process — only a limited amount of information and not more is not an explanation of why and how having and processing (some of) that information is felt. Access and processing limitations, in and of themselves, have nothing to do with consciousness — except that they are correlated with it, so far still inexplicably.
That was the fact that was (and still is) to be explained.
Harnad, S. (2011) Minds, Brains and Turing. Consciousness Online 3.
Harnad, S. (2011) Doing, Feeling, Meaning And Explaining. In: On the Human.
Magyar Manicheanism
See the American Hungarian Federation: AHF Reacts to Unmerited Criticism of Hungary
Excerpt:
1/24/2012 –
AHF reacts to what it sees as politically motivated, unfair, unmerited, biased criticism of Hungary. “While democratic institution building should be encouraged and debated, it should be done based on facts, and in a fair, unbiased and evenhanded manner [it must be] bereft of partisanship (or even the appearance of partisanship) and undertaken solely in furtherance of promoting Western values, not political expediency.”
Comment:
Yes, the current government of Hungary was democratically elected with a two-thirds majority. It then used that two-thirds majority to steadily and systematically erode democracy in Hungary and entrench its power with a new Constitution and autocratic measures that only a two-thirds majority in the other direction will ever be able to undo.
And, yes, the partisan politics in Hungary is appallingly polarized and vicious, but the current government is capitalizing on and stoking it shamelessly, by seeking revenge instead of reform, playing opportunistically on primitive populist and irredentist sentiments and slogans instead of acting honestly and constructively to solve Hungary’s mounting economic and social problems.
The concerted effort by the Hungarian government, in Hungary and abroad, to put a defensive spin on its transparently offensive policies and practices has found a familiar echo in this shamefully biased cry of “bias” echoed by the American Hungarian Federation (AHF).
The mounting worldwide criticism of Hungary’s government is not only far from being unfair and unmerited, but the strategy of portraying it as the result of Hungary’s being yet again victimized by villains, internal and external, will resonate only with the broad (but exclusively Hungarian) Manichean mentality of vendetta and vengeance (hinted at in the dark allusions to the former government’s prime minister in this AHF article) that the present Hungarian government is systematically cultivating at home and abroad, at the cost of Hungary’s present and future in the democratic world.
“No one in the world can tell the Hungarian parliament which laws to pass…”
R. Daniel Kelemen (Director, Center for European Studies, Rutgers University) Christian Science Monitor, Jan 25 2012.
Met Opera’s Enchanted Island
Wonderful performances and voices, especially Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax (the swells from pianissimo in her first aria!), Danielle de Niese as Ariel (her naturally puckish personality winning even when she over-mugs), Luca Pisaroni as Caliban (his acting as superb as his voice — and he could have been a superlative mime too) and Placido Domingo as Neptune (his still-powerful tenor/baritone voice and tone — if not his diction — surprisingly well adapted to the neo-Handel, and very moving). The arias were mostly Handel, the instrumentals and dance Rameau and some Vivaldi. The story was a Midsummer Tempest pastische, and suitably silly, with the right quota of touching moments (with the help of the magnificent music), such as an anachronistic but apt ecological lament for the sea. Most of the ornamentation was out of character, but not off-puttingly so, because the singers were otherwise so good, and probably also because of the brilliantly versatile Met orchestra’s para-baroque compromise (especially the bassoon!) always in the background, setting the context. The combination of advanced video and shoestring period props was a success too. The only downer was the faux-period text by Jeremy Sams (allegedly grounded in Dryden and Pope, but often coming out more like contemporary soap-opera corn), as flat-footed verbally as it was uninspired poetically or theatrically (“Forgive me, Please forgive me,” whines Prospero at the end, without the slightest hint why.) But even that could not spoil an enchanting experience.