Incomplete supervenience

[Kharakov]

Incomplete Supervenience is when supervenience of A upon B, or B upon A, only occurs at times. Feel free to provide a better term.


Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case), and sometimes physical phenomena (neuronal electrochemical activity) can occur without altering mental phenomena (thoughts, reasoning) that was previously supervened upon by physical phenomena in the same "location".


With incomplete supervenience, we could have cases in which mental phenomena are divorced from physical phenomena, and physical phenomena divorced from mental, only to rejoin and supervene upon one another again.

I doubt it... but it's an idea.

 

[bilby]

Incomplete Supervenience is when supervenience of A upon B, or B upon A, only occurs at times. Feel free to provide a better term.


Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case), and sometimes physical phenomena (neuronal electrochemical activity) can occur without altering mental phenomena (thoughts, reasoning) that was previously supervened upon by physical phenomena in the same "location".


With incomplete supervenience, we could have cases in which mental phenomena are divorced from physical phenomena, and physical phenomena divorced from mental, only to rejoin and supervene upon one another again.

I doubt it... but it's an idea.

I, too, doubt that it is an idea.

Certainly there is no reason to imagine that it is any more than an idea.

 

[ryan]

Incomplete Supervenience is when supervenience of A upon B, or B upon A, only occurs at times. Feel free to provide a better term.


Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case), and sometimes physical phenomena (neuronal electrochemical activity) can occur without altering mental phenomena (thoughts, reasoning) that was previously supervened upon by physical phenomena in the same "location".

Are you saying that each different mental state may not have a unique physical state?

 

[Kharakov]

Incomplete Supervenience is when supervenience of A upon B, or B upon A, only occurs at times. Feel free to provide a better term.


Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case), and sometimes physical phenomena (neuronal electrochemical activity) can occur without altering mental phenomena (thoughts, reasoning) that was previously supervened upon by physical phenomena in the same "location".


With incomplete supervenience, we could have cases in which mental phenomena are divorced from physical phenomena, and physical phenomena divorced from mental, only to rejoin and supervene upon one another again.

I doubt it... but it's an idea.

I, too, doubt that it is an idea.

Certainly there is no reason to imagine that it is any more than an idea.

Apparently it's already affected the physical substrate (of TFT), so it's not validating itself.

One could alter a painting physically, without altering how it is perceived, by replacing some of the pigments with new, equivalent pigments that may have different composition.

In this case, the aesthetic quality of the painting is not supervened upon by the physical.


In the case of mental states it would require that 2 different conscious states be supported by the exact same physical substrate, although I wouldn't call the mental state nonphysical- it would simply be a different form of matter that doesn't always interact with the brain 1 to 1, and perhaps interacts with itself then the brain... or the other way around.

- - - Updated - - -

Incomplete Supervenience is when supervenience of A upon B, or B upon A, only occurs at times. Feel free to provide a better term.


Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case), and sometimes physical phenomena (neuronal electrochemical activity) can occur without altering mental phenomena (thoughts, reasoning) that was previously supervened upon by physical phenomena in the same "location".

Are you saying that each different mental state may not have a unique physical state?

No. I was playing fast and loose with the term physical. Mental states would be another type of physical state- but instead they may be weakly interacting physical states that do not always have an effect upon fermions.

 

[DBT]

Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case)

Hard to see how, given that mental phenomena is the physical activity of the 'substrata.'

 

[ryan]

I, too, doubt that it is an idea.

Certainly there is no reason to imagine that it is any more than an idea.

Apparently it's already affected the physical substrate (of TFT), so it's not validating itself.

One could alter a painting physically, without altering how it is perceived, by replacing some of the pigments with new, equivalent pigments that may have different composition.

In this case, the aesthetic quality of the painting is not supervened upon by the physical.

I read about this, and I also wonder about the lone ammonium molecule problem too. The just of it is that my mind will supposedly be the same in a universe with an extra molecule in a ring of Saturn compared to a universe without that extra molecule.

I think this is why supevenience physicalism is dead. It also appears to be a problem for physicalism because SVP is supposed to be minimal physicalism.

 

[Togo]

Is this supposed to be an argument around a form of physicalism that supports both mental and physical states? Or that simply where we are taking the idea?

I've never been sure whether supervenience solves more problems than it causes - I don't feel I understand the concept well enough to judge.

What I can see, for the purposes of physicalism, is a twin circuit approach. You have one set of action/reaction impulses, your classic conditional responses. And then you have a separate modifier circuit that takes in information from the action/reaction system, models that information, and then uses the result to modulate the activity of the action/reaction system. That would give you your physical physical system and your physical 'mental' system, each supervening on the other.

 

[Kharakov]

Assuming we are talking about mental/physical supervenience, at times mental phenomena (thinking) can occur without altering a physical substrate (brain in your case)

Hard to see how, given that mental phenomena is the physical activity of the 'substrata.'

I think the substrata could support more than one mental state in certain cases, and the mental states could interact with one another without affecting the substrata by their interaction, and then the product of their interaction might or might not have an effect upon the substrata.

There are cases in which the alteration of the substrata does not measurably effect the mental state (a single molecule of acetylcholine is hardly going to affect your ability to reason).

At first glance, it appears to be more of a stretch (from the fundamental particle on up the hierarchy way of thinking) to think that mental phenomena can occur without having an effect upon the substrata.

However (I be you couldn't see a however coming... bet you couldn't!), like decisions can be made by board members of a corporation without affecting the activity of the lower echelons while the decisions are made, it is possible that thoughts can interact without supervening upon the permanent structure of all brains (I say all brains, because obviously a mathematical insight would be selected to be added to the brain of a mathematician, while blow job techniques might be more important to someone in a different, more artistic field of work).

 

[Kharakov]

Apparently it's already affected the physical substrate (of TFT), so it's not validating itself.

One could alter a painting physically, without altering how it is perceived, by replacing some of the pigments with new, equivalent pigments that may have different composition.

In this case, the aesthetic quality of the painting is not supervened upon by the physical.

I read about this, and I also wonder about the lone ammonium molecule problem too. The just of it is that my mind will supposedly be the same in a universe with an extra molecule in a ring of Saturn compared to a universe without that extra molecule.

I think this is why supevenience physicalism is dead. It also appears to be a problem for physicalism because SVP is supposed to be minimal physicalism.

Au contraire, mon frère. Mental states are not extremely sensitive to the presence of a single ammonium molecule in the rings of Saturn, but this does not mean any type of physicalism is dead.

Physicalism includes the idea that mental states, gravitational states, electromagnetic states, or whatever do not always have measurable effects upon one another. You thinking about a pink flamingo is not going to measurably alter the orbit of the moon. Your thoughts, in all their physical glory, do not always impinge upon all of reality, and neither does all of reality ever impinge upon your thoughts.

 

[Kharakov]

I've never been sure whether supervenience solves more problems than it causes - I don't feel I understand the concept well enough to judge.

I think the painting example is pretty good: the way the painting looks supervenes upon the physical. In other words, if you alter the way the painting looks, you also alter the physical composition of the painting.

However, the physical doesn't always supervene upon the way the painting looks. You can alter the physical structure of the painting without measurably or noticeably altering the way the painting looks. However, there is a threshold of physical alteration that can be crossed that alters the way the painting looks, so the physical can supervene upon the look of the painting.

I think the term is usually used when something always supervenes (supervenience implies always being supervenient??), which is why I titled this thread Incomplete Supervenience, and left the trailing comment "if someone has a better term???"

What I can see, for the purposes of physicalism, is a twin circuit approach. You have one set of action/reaction impulses, your classic conditional responses. And then you have a separate modifier circuit that takes in information from the action/reaction system, models that information, and then uses the result to modulate the activity of the action/reaction system. That would give you your physical physical system and your physical 'mental' system, each supervening on the other.

Each partially, or incompletely supervening upon the other. They don't always supervene (in the case that the modifier circuit's decisions are calculated without having a direct impact on the a/r circuits until the calculation is complete).

 

[ryan]

Is this supposed to be an argument around a form of physicalism that supports both mental and physical states? Or that simply where we are taking the idea?

Minimal physicalism allows mental states such as supervenience physicalism.

We did it Togo; we now have people talking about the mind!

We did it Togo - we did it!

 

[ryan]

I read about this, and I also wonder about the lone ammonium molecule problem too. The just of it is that my mind will supposedly be the same in a universe with an extra molecule in a ring of Saturn compared to a universe without that extra molecule.

I think this is why supevenience physicalism is dead. It also appears to be a problem for physicalism because SVP is supposed to be minimal physicalism.

Au contraire, mon frère. Mental states are not extremely sensitive to the presence of a single ammonium molecule in the rings of Saturn, but this does not mean any type of physicalism is dead.

Physicalism includes the idea that mental states, gravitational states, electromagnetic states, or whatever do not always have measurable effects upon one another. You thinking about a pink flamingo is not going to measurably alter the orbit of the moon. Your thoughts, in all their physical glory, do not always impinge upon all of reality, and neither does all of reality ever impinge upon your thoughts.

Well, it's, at most, an incomplete theory of physicalism.

 

[DBT]

I don't know, I think the term supervenience may not apply to the brain/consciousness issue if there is no 'lower' level, neural acrivity being the experience of consciousness, with no seperation.

 

[Kharakov]

I don't know, I think the term supervenience may not apply to the brain/consciousness issue if there is no 'lower' level, neural acrivity being the experience of consciousness, with no seperation.

What if neural activity can operate above and below the consciousness at the same time, sort of encapsulate it?

 

[DBT]

I don't know, I think the term supervenience may not apply to the brain/consciousness issue if there is no 'lower' level, neural acrivity being the experience of consciousness, with no seperation.

What if neural activity can operate above and below the consciousness at the same time, sort of encapsulate it?

As far I understand it, sensory inputs 'feeding' unconscious processing from multiple neural structures in turn 'feed' conscious activity/mental representation with information relating to external events, feelings and thoughts.

I don't know what would be described as being above conscious activity/representation.

 

[Kharakov]

What if neural activity can operate above and below the consciousness at the same time, sort of encapsulate it?

As far I understand it, sensory inputs 'feeding' unconscious processing from multiple neural structures in turn 'feed' conscious activity/mental representation with information relating to external events, feelings and thoughts.

I don't know what would be described as being above conscious activity/representation.

I would describe something as "above" our consciousness if there was a higher neural architecture above (supervening upon) the one that our consciousness resides in, or perhaps even non-neural wireless architecture at a level above our conscious awareness that can interact with our consciousness and/or brains.

I wasn't aware of some stuff while I was driving yesterday, but conveniently made a wrong turn at the right time. It's like another consciousness (or consciousnesses) that is/are aware of events influenced my conscious actions without me being aware of the information they have, which resulted in me being the one (or first) person who took the short cut around an accident (by accident).

From my perspective another consciousness or consciousnesses influenced my decision making process with information that I didn't have, which would require that they pass information wirelessly, or some other way, and be able to influence my decision making process without me being aware of it.

If this type of thing only occurred once, I'd dismiss it, but since these types of things appear to happen regularly in my life I don't.

Show

Yesterday on the drive home I was thinking about needing gas and hopped into the left turn lane before I realized I was at the wrong place for gas (it was a 7-11, not the Chevron I wanted). I was a bit pissed about it and thought "fuck, there's fucking craploads of traffic, I spaced the fuck out, and now I'm on this side road, and I don't know where it goes. Should I turn around or... Fuck it, I'll hit the next right."

So I drive up about 300 meters or so and see this road, decide that's the way to go. Drive on this road, and I'm thinking "fuck, it's really trafficy, and I'm going to have to make a left turn (right handed traffic, so left turn is across more traffic) back onto the main drag. This really fucking blows."

Take another right to go back to the main road (well, this road curved to the left, so I had one more right on Goodwin). As I come up to the stop sign, a fire truck with all the bells and whistles slows down in front of me and blocks off traffic to my right, and I see a big wreck in front of me also blocking traffic to my right. So I turn left, because traffic is blocked (turning would have been a bitch if traffic hadn't been blocked by the wreck and the conveniently timed fire truck).

My whole misadventure actually saved me from waiting in a huge line of traffic behind the accident, the 1 km (.62 miles) extra loop saved me from waiting for a while. It didn't look like anyone was injured, although the one SUV had a smooshed front left quarterpanel.

I wasn't aware of the events ahead of me, but somehow avoided getting caught up in traffic, waiting for fire trucks and police to get the accident scene in order.

Not too mention that when I finally got to the gas station, I went to the one pump that required you pay inside because the card reader didn't work, the girl inside fucked up the CC authorization and selected diesel only, so when I went outside, I couldn't pump gas, but I didn't know why, and smashed the 87 octane button a few times, finally giving up and going back inside and having this other guy who knew what he was doing canceling the one transaction, got me 20 cents off a gallon on my rewards card (which the girl didn't) so while the higher ups help me out, they also fuck with me, which also increases my happiness.

 

[DBT]

As far I understand it, sensory inputs 'feeding' unconscious processing from multiple neural structures in turn 'feed' conscious activity/mental representation with information relating to external events, feelings and thoughts.

I don't know what would be described as being above conscious activity/representation.

I would describe something as "above" our consciousness if there was a higher neural architecture above (supervening upon) the one that our consciousness resides in, or perhaps even non-neural wireless architecture at a level above our conscious awareness that can interact with our consciousness and/or brains.

I wasn't aware of some stuff while I was driving yesterday, but conveniently made a wrong turn at the right time. It's like another consciousness (or consciousnesses) that is/are aware of events influenced my conscious actions without me being aware of the information they have, which resulted in me being the one (or first) person who took the short cut around an accident (by accident).

From my perspective another consciousness or consciousnesses influenced my decision making process with information that I didn't have, which would require that they pass information wirelessly, or some other way, and be able to influence my decision making process without me being aware of it.

If this type of thing only occurred once, I'd dismiss it, but since these types of things appear to happen regularly in my life I don't.

Show

Yesterday on the drive home I was thinking about needing gas and hopped into the left turn lane before I realized I was at the wrong place for gas (it was a 7-11, not the Chevron I wanted). I was a bit pissed about it and thought "fuck, there's fucking craploads of traffic, I spaced the fuck out, and now I'm on this side road, and I don't know where it goes. Should I turn around or... Fuck it, I'll hit the next right."

So I drive up about 300 meters or so and see this road, decide that's the way to go. Drive on this road, and I'm thinking "fuck, it's really trafficy, and I'm going to have to make a left turn (right handed traffic, so left turn is across more traffic) back onto the main drag. This really fucking blows."

Take another right to go back to the main road (well, this road curved to the left, so I had one more right on Goodwin). As I come up to the stop sign, a fire truck with all the bells and whistles slows down in front of me and blocks off traffic to my right, and I see a big wreck in front of me also blocking traffic to my right. So I turn left, because traffic is blocked (turning would have been a bitch if traffic hadn't been blocked by the wreck and the conveniently timed fire truck).

My whole misadventure actually saved me from waiting in a huge line of traffic behind the accident, the 1 km (.62 miles) extra loop saved me from waiting for a while. It didn't look like anyone was injured, although the one SUV had a smooshed front left quarterpanel.

I wasn't aware of the events ahead of me, but somehow avoided getting caught up in traffic, waiting for fire trucks and police to get the accident scene in order.

Not too mention that when I finally got to the gas station, I went to the one pump that required you pay inside because the card reader didn't work, the girl inside fucked up the CC authorization and selected diesel only, so when I went outside, I couldn't pump gas, but I didn't know why, and smashed the 87 octane button a few times, finally giving up and going back inside and having this other guy who knew what he was doing canceling the one transaction, got me 20 cents off a gallon on my rewards card (which the girl didn't) so while the higher ups help me out, they also fuck with me, which also increases my happiness.

I don't think your example is something that is 'above consciousness' - what you appear to be describing is the relationship of attention and focus within a range of conscious activity, which does not encompass all of the underlying information of unconscious processing informing conscious activity.

Far more information is not brought to attention than what we happen to be aware of while 'consciously' going about our daily lives...probably most of our activity is semi conscious with a narrow band of focus on what is immediately essential for a task or an activity, driving, negotiating busy roads, working and so on.

Attention and consciousness.
''The close relationship between attention and consciousness has led many scholars to conflate these processes. This article summarizes psychophysical evidence, arguing that top-down attention and consciousness are distinct phenomena that need not occur together and that can be manipulated using distinct paradigms. Subjects can become conscious of an isolated object or the gist of a scene despite the near absence of top-down attention; conversely, subjects can attend to perceptually invisible objects. Furthermore, top-down attention and consciousness can have opposing effects. Such dissociations are easier to understand when the different functions of these two processes are considered. Untangling their tight relationship is necessary for the scientific elucidation of consciousness and its material substrate.''

 

[fromderinside]

Short explain. Attention is more than percept, or, percept is distillation of attendings.

 

[Kharakov]

I don't think your example is something that is 'above consciousness' - what you appear to be describing is the relationship of attention and focus within a range of conscious activity, which does not encompass all of the underlying information of unconscious processing informing conscious activity.

Of course it can be taken that way. In fact, if "physical" reality is simply a single brain made out of conscious material holding multiple consciousnesses made out of conscious material... well, we'll think about it.

Show

Can you identify what is in the above, slightly blurry image?

The story behind this thing is that a friend posted something on FB, and 2 days later on a run, the only time I've see one in my life, I saw the above. Now, it is directly related to what my friend mentioned, but there is no way I can tell if it is an elaborate hallucination created by my brain or not. Even if you tell me that what you see in the above image is what I thought it was, how do I know that my brain did not create an elaborate scenario in which your response confirms what I think I saw, and maybe I never even put this post online. How would I know?

So, can you identify what is in the above image?

 

[DBT]

I don't think your example is something that is 'above consciousness' - what you appear to be describing is the relationship of attention and focus within a range of conscious activity, which does not encompass all of the underlying information of unconscious processing informing conscious activity.

Of course it can be taken that way. In fact, if "physical" reality is simply a single brain made out of conscious material holding multiple consciousnesses made out of conscious material... well, we'll think about it.

Show

View attachment 2790View attachment 2791

Can you identify what is in the above, slightly blurry image?

The story behind this thing is that a friend posted something on FB, and 2 days later on a run, the only time I've see one in my life, I saw the above. Now, it is directly related to what my friend mentioned, but there is no way I can tell if it is an elaborate hallucination created by my brain or not. Even if you tell me that what you see in the above image is what I thought it was, how do I know that my brain did not create an elaborate scenario in which your response confirms what I think I saw, and maybe I never even put this post online. How would I know?

So, can you identify what is in the above image?

The image is too blurry for me to identify. I could try to guess that it is this, or it is that, or it looks like.....but the fact is I don't know what the blurry object is because I do not have sufficient information with which to identify it.

Narrator function is not up to the task, sorry.