Aha! Not at all really. My bad if that got bad in your eyes.

:flower:

Above pls LOL

, if what we're happy to say is that all three obtain in the mind. — AmadeusD

I don't like the baggage of 'obtain'. Require minds... sure. Include minds... sure.

Ok, right, so then there's a Yes/No answer here:

Are you suggesting the Red Pen is actually out there, in the world, whether or not it is perceived?

And that the mind merely does the perceiving of a mind-independent red pen? Yes? No?

I think we both reject the scientistic interpretation of 2b, — Leontiskos

Hold up. Biosemioticians like Stan Salthe explicitly recognise a hierarchy of grades of telos that runs from human purpose to biological function to physical tendency. Sorry, no divine intervention involved. Just the appropriate divisions of semiosis as a system science approach embracing all four ArIstotelean causes.

So in this rendition the naturalist will posit a brute fact where the theist posits a intentional ordering, and these sorts of disputes move further and further towards metaphysics and away from science. — Leontiskos

Not really. The brute fact is structural rather than material. So developmental rather than existential.

And science has gone the same way even at Its fundamental physical level of quantum field theory. Hence Ontic Structural Realism as the recent shiny new toy in metaphysics.

Curiously, the first hit on Google initially frames the idea theologically. — Leontiskos

Yep. And science can have its modern atheistic version. One which reduces to dissipative structure theory, and so not half as exciting of course.

I found that surprising and interesting. It is interesting that it is intuitive and commonly accepted that <If the Big Bang occurred, then the universe was probably created>, — Leontiskos

The argument goes different. GR showed the cosmos is unstable. It would either have to be contracting or expanding. If contracting, it ought to have already disappeared from existence. It indeed exists, so therefore it must be expanding. And therefore have had an abrupt creation-like beginning. A creation event in which spacetime and its material contents got going on their eternalised expanding and cooling. Forever falling into a heat sink of their own construction.

Ok, right, so then there's a Yes/No answer here:

Are you suggesting the Red Pen is actually out there, in the world, whether or not it is perceived? — AmadeusD

There's a bit of an identity crisis here. I do not know what you're picking out - if anything - to the exclusion of all else with "Red Pen".

The red super fine one I last put in my wooden writing utensil holder, is still there despite my not looking at it now...

So, yes.

I would say that red pen is actually in that holder, on top of that back bench at that location, right now.

And that the mind merely does the perceiving of a mind-independent red pen? Yes? No? — AmadeusD

I wouldn't say that.

There's a bit of an identity crisis here. — creativesoul

Ah, no (after reading your response), this is my bad. "any given red pen" should have been the phrase, because it matters not what instance we're talking about. Either pens can be red, whether or not we know they are, or they can only be red in virtue of our experiencing them as red. One must trump the other, save for lower-level disagreements.

So, yes. — creativesoul

Okay. This may clarify some of what I was confused about in your different phrasings and descriptions.

I wouldn't say that. — creativesoul

What do you take the pen to be when it isn't being perceived. Red? Or Red-causing? What element of it is red, when not being perceived? This is what I am not able to ascertain in any of these realist accounts. What makes the pen red "out there" (we know that 'use' is what makes it a pen, so I'm halfway in understanding the position).

I suspect the role of pain to Wittgenstein is being misunderstood. — Hanover

I think that's right. Pain is presented by Wittgenstein as an example of a sensation. He probably chose pain because it produced a special example, in the sense that unlike many other sensations, which he could have chosen, pain may be purely internal, without an external "cause". Nevertheless, he presented "pain" as a specific type of the more general, "sensation". Whether or not "sensation" in the sense of pain, is the same word as "sensation" in the sense of colour, so as to avoid equivocation, is another question. But Wittgenstein enthralled himself with ambiguity. That's why it's so difficult to find agreement on his "complex philosophy".

Wittgenstein enthralled himself with ambiguity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ain't that the truth. I think this makes a lot of commentary on him redundant, too. Russell obviously had some insight, and the original translators too but overall, so much murkiness due to his ambiguous language (ironic, lol) as to what's being discussed.

Can you see something (relatively simple 'something') that could be a difference between pain and colour as sensations? Or a way in whcih one is not a sensation the way the other is and therefore supporting Witty's endless assurances that our language is hte problem, and not hte problems. LOL.

What do you take the pen to be when it isn't being perceived. — AmadeusD

Exactly the same as it is while looking at it.

Ok cool. That clarifies most of what you've said, and makes a couple of things more opaque :sweat:
But, thank you - my confusion is now slain.

You asked me "what's the difference between hallucinating red and the mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur."

The mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur is the mental percept that occurs when we hallucinate red. That is why it's hallucinating red and not hallucinating green or voices. But it is an hallucination because it is caused by something like drugs rather than 620-750nm light stimulating the eyes.

Phenomenal consciousness is either reducible to or supervenient on brain activity. The only connection between distal objects and brain activity is that distal objects often play a causal role in determining brain activity. This is what the science shows.

Given this, it's not at all clear what 'direct perception' is. That phenomenal consciousness is 'of' distal objects? What is the word 'of' doing here? If, for the sake of argument, phenomenal consciousness is reducible to brain activity then this amounts to the claim that brain activity is 'of' distal objects. What does that even mean?

It strikes me that 'direct perception' requires a very different (unscientific) interpretation of phenomenal consciousness, e.g. some kind of extended immaterial mind that reaches out beyond the body.

Regardless, it is a fact that colours are constituents of phenomenal consciousness, and so an explanation of colours requires an explanation of phenomenal consciousness. The hard problem is still unsolved, and so the best we can do is recognize the neural correlates of colour percepts.

That phenomenal consciousness is "of" distal objects? What is the word "of" doing here? If, for the sake of argument, phenomenal consciousness is reducible to brain activity then this amounts to the claim that brain activity is "of" distal objects. What does that even mean? — Michael

Maybe replace "of" with "about"? In the sense in which intentionality emerges from our brains with 'mental objects' being about distal objects?

Maybe replace "of" with "about"? In the sense in which intentionality emerges from our brains with 'mental objects' being about distal objects? — wonderer1

What does it mean to say that brain activity is about distal objects?

Regardless, our primary concern isn't with intentionality but with appearances. As asked by Byrne & Hilbert (2003), "do objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive [colour] property that they do appear to have?".

Prima facie one can claim that distal objects are the intentional object of perception but also that the visual imagery (e.g. the shape and colour) they cause us to experience does not resemble their mind-independent nature (much like we'd say the same about their smell and taste), i.e. maintaining the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena. That strikes me as being indirect realism rather than direct realism, not that the label really matters.

That strikes me as being closer to the spirit of indirect realism than direct realism. — Michael

I can't say I am particularly interested in fitting into either box, let alone fighting for one of them.

Can you see something (relatively simple 'something') that could be a difference between pain and colour as sensations? Or a way in whcih one is not a sensation the way the other is and therefore supporting Witty's endless assurances that our language is hte problem, and not hte problems. LOL. — AmadeusD

It's questionable whether pain is properly a sensation rather than a sort of idea. This is because pain crosses all the sense types. Generally we think of pain as a type of touch, but sharp sounds can be painful, bright lights can be painful, even the tastes and smells which we judge as very bad can be painful.

When I look at my OED dictionary definitions, the first definition is "the consciousness of perceiving or seeming to perceive some state or condition of the body or its parts or senses or of one's mind or its emotions;..." and this is the most common use. Notice the use of "or" which allows ambiguity. The second definition is "a stirring of emotions or intense interest esp. among a large group of people (the news caused a sensation)".

Notice that neither definition refers directly to what is produced by a sense organ, what we might call the sense image, or the percept. Both definitions of "sensation" refer to the conscious awareness of something, which may or may not be classed as a percept. In the case of pain, there is no percept. So what happens with the conscious awareness of pain. and consequentially the use of the word "pain", is that it becomes a concept which we use to refer to a type of "sensation" which is emotionally based, rather than being based in sense perception. This creates a distinguishable difference between types of sensation, which is more formally exposed in the distinction between types of "feelings". We can use "feeling" to refer to the activity of using the sense of touch, and we can also use "feeling" to refer to things produced by the emotions. In the case of "feeling" the difference between having a percept and not having a percept is very evident from the very distinct uses of the word.

The fact that "pain" in its common usage refers to an emotion based concept, rather than a percept based concept becomes very evident in Plato's work. Pain is commonly contrasted with pleasure, and such contrasting is a conceptual function which cannot be done with percept based sensations. There is no opposite to red. Plato shows that such contrasting in itself is a faulty way of analyzing emotion based concepts, by showing why pleasure is not truly contrasted with pain. From here he moves toward an "objective" way of looking at pleasure and pain, where "objective", and "the object" of emotionally based concepts are a good, a goal. In this way, the emotionally based feeling, or sensation, has a causal object, but the object is a good, as a goal or objective, rather than a sense percept.

2b. There are no teleological realities.

...

I think we both reject the scientistic interpretation of 2b, . . . — Leontiskos

Hold up. Biosemioticians like Stan Salthe explicitly recognise a hierarchy of grades of telos that runs from human purpose to biological function to physical tendency. Sorry, no divine intervention involved. Just the appropriate divisions of semiosis as a system science approach embracing all four ArIstotelean causes. — apokrisis

Then it sounds to me that he rejects 2b, no? Were you reading "theological" instead of "teleological"?

Not really. The brute fact is structural rather than material. So developmental rather than existential.

And science has gone the same way even at Its fundamental physical level of quantum field theory. Hence Ontic Structural Realism as the recent shiny new toy in metaphysics. — apokrisis

Oh, I agree that the structure is what is at stake. Later in my post I said, "Reframing the supposedly brute-fact structure as intentional or teleological is not a scientific move."

The argument goes different. GR showed the cosmos is unstable. It would either have to be contracting or expanding. If contracting, it ought to have already disappeared from existence. It indeed exists, so therefore it must be expanding. — apokrisis

But it seems that, at first, not only did Einstein fail to recognize this, but he actively opposed it. For example:

Einstein had nothing to say to the young Abbé about the mathematical part of his paper, technically it was perfect, but he completely disagreed with him concerning its physical interpretation. Einstein said very crudely: “from the point of view of Physics this seems to me abominable”. What’s the reason of such brutal reaction? In fact Einstein did not admit at this time an expanding universe. Probably influenced by his implicit Spinozist philosophy, he did not accept the fact that the universe had a real history. One remembers that Einstein had shown his strong opposition to the papers of Alexander Friedmann, this Russian mathematician and meteorologist who discovered in 1922-1924 solutions of Einstein’s equations corresponding to expanding and contracting universes. According to Einstein, the universe as a whole has to remain forever immutable. Einstein’s first cosmological model, published in 1917, was indeed a spherical and perfectly static universe. It is worth noting that Georges Lemaître, at the time he wrote his paper on the recession of the nebulae, did not know Friedmann’s discoveries. In 1929 Lemaître told that it was Einstein himself who informed him about the existence of the “Friedmann (expanding and contracting) universes”. — Einstein and Lemaître: two friends, two cosmologies…

To my understanding, later on Edwin Hubble empirically confirmed Lemaître's thesis by showing that the universe is in fact expanding, at which point Einstein capitulated. Einstein's resistance is a good example of the way that metaphysical theories interact with the scientific data.

Moving a bit further:

...and then what remains is a difference over a more narrow version of 2b, "There are no divine teleological realities."

...

The more interesting question surely has to do with the narrower version of 2b, but I will leave it there for now. — Leontiskos

We could call the narrower version 2c:

2c. There are no divine teleological realities.

Or, "There are no teleological realities or causes external to the universe itself." I think this is what your point with Salthe was directed against. It seems to me that the arguments here will be parallel to the arguments surrounding 2b, namely that there is a key difference between saying that one has no evidence for something and saying that something does not exist. This is sort of a topic of its own.

there is a key difference between saying that one has no evidence for something and saying that something does not exist. — Leontiskos

I’m not clear what you are driving at. But I have no problem if you are saying the negative can’t be proved. I can’t claim evidence against a transcendent “God did it” story. One could always adjust a supernatural claim to lie just beyond the reality that can be evidenced.

I mean scientists can posit superdeterminism as the way to regain realism in quantum mechanics. There is always a way to suggest a hidden cause beyond the reach of the evidence available.

So sure, as pragmatists, we advance by having beliefs that we seek to doubt. Einstein had his classical presumptions and because they could be counterfactually expressed, they could be shown to be wrong. Or at least forced past the bounds of counterfactuality, as with superdeterminism.

It's questionable whether pain is properly a sensation rather than a sort of idea. This is because pain crosses all the sense types. Generally we think of pain as a type of touch, but sharp sounds can be painful, bright lights can be painful, even the tastes and smells which we judge as very bad can be painful. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand it being questionable, but I do not understand actually thinking this. Pain is a sensation of touch with varying degrees to it - high-enough, and you experience a sensation. The aversion response is certainly an emotional/psychological aspect of pain, but that aspect is not necessary to describe pain. It is the ideal response to pain (well, pain accurately alerting one to an injury anyhow).
Loud-enough noises vibrate elements of the ear in "painful" ways such that the physical vibrations send the signal to "stop/avoid this noise" to the brain to avoid damage but often, these go either unheeded emotionally, or are overwhelmed by more, or higher-degree sensations (think about wtf someone needs to turn the music down to read road signs correctly).
Similarly with other senses - smells - some chilis are physically dangerous to smell due to the chemical composition of the air which carries the aroma in question - they can destroy cells in the nose/sinuses. These are, in the cases you've pointed out, anyway, the same thing(i.e a sensation) under different levels of description - but they are not 'different' ways of accessing the same mental phenomenon. For completeness, you mention taste - but 'painful' taste is that which is actually harming the tastebuds (bloody chilis do not like humans!!) Though, i take pain to be just that, anyway so perhaps 'idea' is actually correct anyway? Sensation, as best I can tell, is the mental percept resulting from a sensory stimulus. They can, in that way, simply be wrong if our machinery isn't calibrated to accurately convey the local issue (injury) to the brain for review.

Notice the use of "or" which allows ambiguity. — Metaphysician Undercover

If 'pain' can be characterised as a mental phenomenon, the 'or' is only indicating the cause (i.e what triggered the c/a-fibers). I'm unsure this allows for any per se ambiguity in the concept. The one exception here would be "emotional pain" which I think is incorrectly labelled pain rather than discomfort - which can, acceptably, be left very vague and subjective. "sensation" per se is not-well defined, i'll grant you - but it seems pretty obvious that a "bodily" sensation must be a the result of the senses. This then gets into how mental phenomena such as pain are merely triggered by the senses and so pain, within a dream, could not properly be described as sensation, but an idea. One which is triggered by the senses in some way, would be a sensation. Does that at least track with the delineation you're outlining?

The second definition — Metaphysician Undercover

I would say this is a good example where a word is referring to two obviously different things and we can jettison that second def. for the purpose of this discussion. I take it to be a metaphorical extension of the first, in any case, to apply to 'the body of persons' involved in the 'sensation' caused. As if humans were atomic parts of a whole. So, it seems irrelevant to discussing 'bodily sensation', as we seem to be doing.

what happens with the conscious awareness of pain. and consequently the use of the word "pain", is that it becomes a concept which we use to refer to a type of "sensation" which is emotionally based, rather than being based in sense perception — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think this is right, but I do think that this does happen, wrongly. The above responses go some way as to why. Emotions often conflict with the sensation of pain. I believe pain is, like vision, a result of sense perception but is simply open to the all the aberrations vision is open to, being that we never "view" the actual object in the visual field on this account. Pain is rightly not conceptualised as something 'taken in' from without, via the senses, but something produced by the sense-data of touch interacting with the sense organ (in this case, pain receptors/skin variously described as such under particular conditions of intensity, locality etc.. receiving pressure, angle, surface coverage, angle-of-motion etc.. to inform the signal to be sent). All senses are indirect in this way as I understand them both on the empirical, process related information, and the conceptual coherence (or, incoherence, really) involved. And they are all open to being wrong. I think holding a 1:1 concept of the internal representation of sensory data is probably wrong.

Pain is commonly contrasted with pleasure — Metaphysician Undercover

Which is, at best, misleading. The opposite to pain or pleasure is a lack of touch sensation. Nothing to trigger a percept of either. They aren't entirely dispositional states - 'pleasure' can be characterized as uncomfortable, and pain as satisfying.

In this way, the emotionally based feeling, or sensation, has a causal object, but the object is a good, as a goal or objective, rather than a sense percept. — Metaphysician Undercover

This, to me, went completely off the rails right before this conclusion. Introducing 'the Good' made this almost impossible for me to wade into, and I apologise as it seems to just not make much sense as a result. I realise that's as likely to be me missing something!

You asked me "what's the difference between hallucinating red and the mental percept that 620-750nm light ordinarily causes to occur." — Michael

I also asked what the difference was between the mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur and seeing red, and dreaming red.

You claimed "nothing" as an answer to all three questions. If there is no difference between four things, then they are the same.

They're all experiences. Three different kinds of experiences. "Mental percept" is not one.

What counts as an experience?

What's the name given to the most blood-filled active biological structures "lighting up" in the scans?

Hallucination, dreaming, and seeing are very different experiences. Seeing a red pen is a common experience that always includes a red pen.

Hallucinating a red pen does not.

Dreaming one does not.

They are not equivalent experiences. They are all existentially dependent upon red pens. They do not all include red pens.

They all include mental percepts. They do not all consist entirely of them. I'm cool with admitting that all dreams consist of little more than biological structures doing their thing. Dreams consist of biological autonomous neurological functioning. Red pens are not. Therefore... dreams of red pens do not consist of red pens. Hallucinations consist of biological autonomous neurological functioning. Red pens are not. Therefore...

Seeing red pens is not always and/or necessarily an experience that requires color vision. Hallucinating red pens does.

We can expose an individual devoid of the biological structures necessary for noticing color to a red pen. They are otherwise very similar in biological structures to us. They can then follow that red pen around. Clearly, they see that particular red pen. They're paying very close attention to it. They're following it with their eyes. I would not deny them of mental percepts. I would note that their percepts are not the entirety of their experience. I would not deny that they are fixated upon a red pen. Their experience of that particular red pen includes that pen, despite their inability to know it's color.

Color doesn't always matter.

They cannot hallucinate red pens. They cannot dream red pens.

Sometimes it does.

Meaningful correlations, associations, connections always matter. Red pens can become very meaningful to a color blind creature. That meaning neither results from nor consists of either hallucination or dreams of red. Red pens play a meaningful role in experience without any subjective private quale... redness.

I’m not clear what you are driving at. But I have no problem if you are saying the negative can’t be proved. I can’t claim evidence against a transcendent “God did it” story. One could always adjust a supernatural claim to lie just beyond the reality that can be evidenced.

I mean scientists can posit superdeterminism as the way to regain realism in quantum mechanics. There is always a way to suggest a hidden cause beyond the reach of the evidence available. — apokrisis

We can agree that the negative can't be strictly proved, but I do not see it as a matter of theological unfalsifiability:

So sure, as pragmatists, we advance by having beliefs that we seek to doubt. Einstein had his classical presumptions and because they could be counterfactually expressed, they could be shown to be wrong. — apokrisis

Einstein had a great deal of difficulty doubting his own theory because his metaphysical parameters did not admit of the possibility that his theory could be wrong. For him it was presumably not even a proper theory or thesis. A non-static universe was for Einstein bad physics in an obvious way. Similarly, for Scientism teleology is bad science, for science is supposed to be inherently mechanistic. As with Michael's positions, these claims have to do with the paradigm being used, and not primarily with the scientific data. They only become falsifiable once a paradigm shift makes room for a new kind of data.

Similarly, if the naturalist thinks that the only possible argument for theism is a god of the gaps argument, then it seems to me that it is the paradigm that is controlling his conclusion more than the data. A piece of evidence may be absent, but it may also be deemed inadmissible. It would seem that the naturalist is by definition conceiving of the only possibly live evidences for theism as inadmissible. The argument is something like, "If God were an object within the universe then he would be experimentally verifiable, and the absence of this experimental evidence is evidence of absence." The (classical) theist responds that this is a fine argument except for the fact that God is not and has never been conceived as an object within the universe. Internalism is a non-starter for the theist. It's not a matter of adjusting supernatural claims, but rather of attending to the actual claims that have been with us for thousands of years.

More pointedly, the question of whether the metaphysical structure is or is not a brute fact is not adjudicable within a naturalistic paradigm, but it does not thereby follow that it is not adjudicable. The presuppositions of the scientific domain can be interrogated, just not by science. If there can be evidence for something, then there can be evidence for the absence of that something, even when there cannot be proof for the absence of it.* The question is then not one of whether the naysayer has proof for the absence of something, but whether they have evidence for the absence of something. Certainly Michael has no proof that color is arbitrary, but the substantial question asks whether he has evidence that color is arbitrary (and this evidence will in turn help us to understand what is meant by 'arbitrary' in this context).

* And because of this the god-of-the-gaps paradigm of the modern naturalist matches the theological paradigm of the modern fundamentalist, which ensures that these two camps seldom talk past each other. Both are working with a similar conception of God.

because of this the god-of-the-gaps paradigm of the modern naturalist matches the theological paradigm of the modern fundamentalist — Leontiskos

Care to set out the match?

Pain is a sensation of touch with varying degrees to it - high-enough, and you experience a sensation. — AmadeusD

I don't think we can say this. There are many internal pains, sore muscles, stiffness, headaches, stomach aches, and pains of other organs. I don't think it's proper to call such pains a sensation of touch.

The one exception here would be "emotional pain" which I think is incorrectly labelled pain rather than discomfort - which can, acceptably, be left very vague and subjective — AmadeusD

I also do not think this proposed distinction between pain and discomfort is useful. What one person calls discomfort, another would call pain. What is subjective is the proposed distinction.

but it seems pretty obvious that a "bodily" sensation must be a the result of the senses. — AmadeusD

Do you not have internal pains? These are not the result of any of the five known senses. You are not touching your stomach when you feel a stomach ache.

I don't think this is right, but I do think that this does happen, wrongly. The above responses go some way as to why. Emotions often conflict with the sensation of pain. I believe pain is, like vision, a result of sense perception but is simply open to the all the aberrations vision is open to, being that we never "view" the actual object in the visual field on this account. Pain is rightly not conceptualised as something 'taken in' from without, via the senses, but something produced by the sense-data of touch interacting with the sense organ (in this case, pain receptors/skin variously described as such under particular conditions of intensity, locality etc.. receiving pressure, angle, surface coverage, angle-of-motion etc.. to inform the signal to be sent). All senses are indirect in this way as I understand them both on the empirical, process related information, and the conceptual coherence (or, incoherence, really) involved. And they are all open to being wrong. I think holding a 1:1 concept of the internal representation of sensory data is probably wrong. — AmadeusD

I think this is all wrong. You start with the faulty assumption that pain is produced from the sense of touch, and you proceed from that false premise. Pain is not produced from the sense of touch, as internal pains demonstrate. If you knew some of the science about how pain is supposed to be an interaction between the brain and the inflicted part of the body, through the medium of the nervous system, you would recognize that your proposition is very likely false. There is no sense of touch involved in pain, there is an inflicted part of the body, and a nervous system with a brain involved. If I remember correctly, it is commonly believed, in the field of medicine, that the brain actually sends the pain signal to the inflicted part, not vise versa. This is how Tylenol is thought to work, by affecting the part of the brain which sends the pain signal.

Phenomenal consciousness is either reducible to or supervenient on brain activity. The only connection between distal objects and brain activity is that distal objects often play a causal role in determining brain activity. This is what the science shows. — Michael

It seems to me that these concepts are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. Consciousness could indeed be caused by brain activity in a seemingly random and complex way where the brain's development and firings gradually give rise to conscious awareness.

From the early stages of fetal development, when the first synapses form, brain activity begins to spark the flame of consciousness. This process continues as the brain matures, with consciousness developing alongside. Perhaps, it might appear that consciousness supervenes on brain activity, emerging as the brain grows and becomes more complex, it is also reducible to these very brain process.

That makes consciousness both dependent and fully explainable by brain activity, and by the brains activity...I mean thinking thoughts...This unit I am seeing, instead of choosing between reducibility OR supervenience to explain what intel hasn't allowed us to see yet, shows how maybe its both working together instead.

*See Henry P Stapp, an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the "orthodox" quantum mechanics of John von Neumann.

“Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics” 1993: In this book, Stapp addresses the implications of quantum mechanics for the mind-body problem. He explains how quantum mechanics allows for causally effective conscious thought to be combined with the physical brain. Which aligns with what I mentioned above.

“Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer” 2007: This book explores how quantum mechanics can radically change our understanding of the connection between mind and brain. Stapp discusses the role of consciousness in the dynamics of quantum mechanics, which could support the view on the interplay between brain activity and consciousness.

Here is a link to one of his papers, if your interest hardens: "Quantum Interactive Dualism: An Alternative to Materialism" Note this paper was published in 2005, between the time his major works we complete its clear his ideas on the interactions between QM and consciousness were evolving and refined over time.

Quote from the abstract in the paper link above, "First, it injects random elements into the dynamics. Second, it allows, and also requires, abrupt probing actions that disrupt the mechanistically described evolution of the physically described systems. These probing actions are called Process 1 interventions by von Neumann. They are psycho-physical events. Neither the content nor the timing of these events is determined either by any known law, or by the afore-mentioned random elements. Orthodox quantum mechanics considers these events to be instigated by choices made by conscious agents. In von Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory each such intervention acts upon the state of the brain of some conscious agent. Thus orthodox von Neumann contemporary physics posits an interactive dualism similar to that of Descartes. But in this quantum version the effects of the conscious choices upon our brains are controlled, in part, by the known basic rules of quantum physics. This theoretically specified mind-brain connection allows many basic psychological and neuropsychological findings associated with the apparent physical effectiveness of our conscious volitional efforts to be explained in a causal and practically useful way."

I once seriously injured the thumb of my right hand. Almost cut the tip off, including half of the last skeletal digit. Immediate and constant pressure under tight wrap was applied. No pain. Perfect saw kerf visible in xray. Shattered beyond. Excellent job technician. Took nearly six months for the bone fragments to make their way to the surface and be expelled. Interesting scars.

Bad habits became muscle memory while always paying close attention to the relationship between the cutting tool and my body. Complacency won when I did not pay attention to how close my thumb was to the tool. Two things cannot occupy the same space during the same timeframe.

Reaching over a cutter to grab a push stick is a bad habit to form. I no longer have that habit.

There are many internal pains, sore muscles, stiffness, headaches, stomach aches, and pains of other organs. I don't think it's proper to call such pains a sensation of touch. — Metaphysician Undercover

These are all examples of physical touch, though? These are all situations where some physical force exerted on the pain receptors has triggered a signalling cascade to your brain. Maybe there's more to be said, but I don't see a different other than in sort of spatial locale. I can hurt my tongue by running it along the edges of my front teeth, as an example. The tongue is a muscle.

I also do not think this proposed distinction between pain and discomfort is useful. What one person calls discomfort, another would call pain. What is subjective is the proposed distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this is shying away from the real meat here. It's not a distinction. Pains are generally uncomfortable, but not always. Discomfort is largely not painful (without the former being the case, if you see what i mean). They come apart and are distinct, but I'm not trying to put them in a relation to one another.

Do you not have internal pains? These are not the result of any of the five known senses. You are not touching your stomach when you feel a stomach ache — Metaphysician Undercover

Addressed above, A stomach ache, generally, is the physical (sensory) event causing pain internally (though, you're actually describing discomfort here so I'm not sure your objection works anyway - internal "pain" is generally hte result of an actual physical aberration - say, a torn stomach lining. All of these feelings arise from sensory data, internal or external. I think you are insinuating that internal pain is not 'caused'? What could it be caused by if not sensory data (just, from within, not without)).

You start with the faulty assumption that pain is produced from the sense of touch, and you proceed from that false premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

You say it's false - i think you haven't shown that at all. I'm unsure you've even shaken my position with what you've said...

Pain is not produced from the sense of touch, as internal pains demonstrate. — Metaphysician Undercover

Dealt with, and I disagree with your account of pain. It seems plainly wrong, empirically speaking.

If you knew some of the science about how pain is supposed to be an interaction between the brain and the inflicted part of the body, through the medium of the nervous system, you would recognize that your proposition is very likely false. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do. And that is actually exactly why it appears to be true to me. What are you specifically referencing here? I ask, because all we know about pain seems to violate your position in many ways.
Some excerpts that are apt here:

"Nociception refers to ... processing of noxious stimuli, such as tissue injury and temperature extremes, which activate nociceptors and their pathways.
...
"The receptors responsible for relaying nociceptive information are termed nociceptors; they can be found on the skin, joints, viscera, and muscles.
...
"Pain perception begins with free nerve endings ... The multitude of different receptors conveys information that converges onto neuronal cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglion (stimulus from the body) and the trigeminal ganglia (stimulus from the face). There are 2 major nociceptive nerve fibers: A-delta fibers and C-fibers. A-delta fibers are lightly myelinated and have small receptive fields, which allow them to alert the body to the presence of pain. Due to the higher degree of myelination compared to C-fibers, these fibers are responsible for the initial perception of pain. Conversely, C-fibers are unmyelinated and have large receptive fields, which allow them to relay pain intensity.
...
"The body is also capable of suppressing pain signals from these ascending pathways. Opioid receptors are found at various sites ... The descending pain suppression pathway is a circuit composed of (the part missing here doesn't matter, i'm just connecting the following to the whole piece) .. It suppresses information carried via C-fibers, not A-delta fibers, by inhibiting local GABAergic interneurons."

It then speaks about how in some complex pain disorders, the pathway is aberrated and signals cross, weaken, intensify etc... due to a couple of conditions, but describes them in the above terms.

This is how Tylenol is thought to work, by affecting the part of the brain which sends the pain signal. — Metaphysician Undercover

This does not seem to be the case, at all. Unfortunately, it doesn't even seem reasonable to suggest that the brain sends a "pain" signal to the injured area. How would that even work? Where does it land? What does it do? Cause the area to simply relay more pain signals to the brain? This is getting a little silly, tbh.

It seemed to me, though I do not have the resource on hand, that the way most pain medications work (Tylenol included) is inhibiting the brain's pain receptors so as to uptake less signal from the affected area (or, none, in some cases). I did find this:

"...by directly inhibiting the excitatory synaptic transmission via TRPV1 receptors expressed on terminals of C-fibers in the spinal dorsal horn. Contrary to previous studies on the brain, we failed to find the analgesic effect of acetaminophen/AM404 on the CB1 receptor on spinal dorsal horn neurons."

This directly suggests that all that is happening is that the signals from the affected area are arrested along the ascending pain pathway.