We are not computers. Contra Chomsky, we are not computational, representational rationalists. Seeing something as something is recognizing that thing. Recognition is a creative act , not a representational comparison. To recognize a thing is to see it as both familiar and novel in some freshly relevant way. Belief is thus fecund rather than calculative. It is also affective. Things matter to us in affectively valuative ways. — Joshs

I would go so far as to say "what we are" is very much at issue and up for grabs, in the sense that any interpretation of that oriented around basic facts can be ratified through agreement and understanding. And insofar as the generally accepted and historically transmitted consensus about "what we are" is realized, beliefs are constitutive of that thing (which is actualized in that way, which I see as a good general description of consciousness).

I'm sorry I have taken so long to respond to your posts. I am distracted by the approach of Christmas with all that entails and my time for philosophy will be limited for the next week, at least.

I follow those psychologists and philosophers who think we should take a cue from other animals and be clever enough to get rid of the syllogism as the paradigm of ‘rational belief’. — Joshs

Thank you for your post and the time it must have taken to write.

A first response.

This seems to be like the approach that is known as enactive, or phenomenologically enactive, psychology. Am I right about that? I have came across it recently, and found it very interesting indeed. So I would welcome an exploration of that, though I would need to do some reading before I could contribute intelligently. I have some reading lined up.

It occurs to me that, while the proposed beliefs that are not merely factual in the traditional sense but also emotional or at least value-laden or at least giving rise to a response without progressing through a process corresponding to the traditional syllogism will be very hard to characterize in the way(s) that are currently accepted in philosophy. I’m sorry that’s such a convoluted sentence, but it is very hard to work out a better way right now.

But I think we need to acknowledge that an embedded belief which is not consciously verbalized is very hard to characterize anyway. A given proposition is embedded in a network of other propositions and concepts which we do not often bother to characterize. Partly, it is about the grammatical (philosophical sense) relationships based on the understanding required to use language and partly about empirical relationships, deriving from memory and observation. An articulation by the believer has a special status because it will be informed by the most relevant background and so provides something of a benchmark. Where that benchmark is missing, it is will be much more difficult to be sure that a given articulation is accurate. I don’t have a solution to this.

And insofar as the generally accepted and historically transmitted consensus about "what we are" is realized, beliefs are constitutive of that thing (which is actualized in that way, which I see as a good general description of consciousness). — Pantagruel

Your general description of consciousness is attractive. I take it that by "realized" you mean that people conform to the general consensus - or something like that.

I think there are difficulties about the “hard problem”, which on my understanding is understanding the difference between description of experience and experience of experience, which I think of as the question of “ownership”. But I suspect that it is not a problem with a solution. There is something very odd about the demand to give a description of having an experience which captures the difference between experiencing something and describing it.

There is something very odd about the demand to give a description of having an experience which captures the difference between experiencing something and describing it. — Ludwig V

Perhaps this relates to the extent that having a description of an experience can thereby alter that experience. In any field where technical competence can be enhanced through learning (i.e. art, music, etc.) that enhanced understanding definitely changes the nature of the lived experience (the experience of a symphony by an untrained listener versus a skilled musician, for example). Add to that the fact that descriptions inherently transcend the isolation of individual perspective towards an expanded, dialogic-interpersonal version of reality.

That's all certainly true.

I remember seeing quoted from Hacker. According to him, a description of an experience will be of a tickle, a twinge, a pain, with some adjectives like stabbing or dull. Our vocabulary for this is quite meagre, really, nothing like as powerful as the technique we adopt when there isn't a word for it - the smell of coffee, the touch of silk and so forth. Here the experience is being described by comparison with some that can produce the experience - not necessarily an object - it could be an action. Hence, my awkward feeling that he is changing the subject, is, in a sense, correct.

But maybe answers can be found. But if they are in the form of propositions, I think the questions about qualia will not be quenched. That problem needs a different kind of answer - hence my attempt in my post. I like Wittgenstein's answer to his interlocutor objecting that there is great difference between someone else experiencing pain and me experiencing it. He says "What greater difference could there be?", and no more. Which doesn't answer the question.

There is a section in Neurocomputational Perspective where Paul Churchland speculates that, if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. The ultimate embedding of belief I guess you could say.

↪Ludwig V There is a section in Neurocomputational Perspective where Paul Churchland speculates that, if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. The ultimate embedding of belief I guess you could say. — Pantagruel

This is where phenomenology can be helpful.

“…it is phenomenologically absurd, as Heidegger once pointed out, “to speak of the phenomenon as if it were something behind which there would be something else
of which it would be a phenomenon in the sense of the appearance which represents and expresses [this something else]. A phenomenon is nothing behind which there would be something else. More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself (Heidegger 1985: 86).

For Husserl, physical nature makes itself known in what appears perceptually. The very idea of defining the really real reality as the unknown cause of our experience, and to suggest that the investigated object is a mere sign of a distinct hidden object whose real nature must remain unknown and which can never be apprehended according to its own determinations, is for Husserl nothing but a piece of mythologizing (Husserl 1982: 122). Rather than defining objective reality as what is there in itself, rather than distinguishing how things are for us from how they are simpliciter in order then to insist that the investigation of the latter is the truly important one, Husserl urges us to face up to the fact that our access to as well as the very nature of objectivity necessarily involves both subjectivity and intersubjectivity.”

if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. — Pantagruel

In principle, this is just taking the computer analogy seriously, and I wouldn't argue that that analogy is not useful. In the case of the machines, if we understand the mechanics well enough, providing the experience of seeing Niagara Falls require simply copying a "JPG" file to another computer. But in the case of the machine, we know that the software and ancillary information that is involved in interpreting the file is (more or less) identical. We don't know that in the case of a human brain.

All I'm saying is that my expectation of the computer analogy is that it will be helpful, but, like any other analogy, there will be limits. It may even be unhelpful. Pragmatism, not truth.

More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself (Heidegger 1985: 86). — Joshs

Husserl urges us to face up to the fact that our access to as well as the very nature of objectivity necessarily involves both subjectivity and intersubjectivity.” — Joshs

I'm not at all sure, but it looks to me as if these two quotations contradict each other. On the other hand, the contradiction may not be important, since both views agree that we cannot leave the phenomena alone, but need to find something more. One suggests that we need a more complex understanding ot what we already have; the other suggests that we need access to something different. This fits with my prejudice, which is probably the result of an old-fashioned education, that metaphysical differences always reduce to linguistic differences and consequently make no difference, since everything that can be said can be said in both languages. To put the point another way, what is at stake here?

However, I'm very much in agreement with Husserl that objectivity, subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are mutually interdependent. For a start, since "objective" and "subjective" are polar concepts, defined by their opposition to each other, then if everything is subjective, "subjective" has lost its meaning.