Some Thoughts on Monday's Debate

I do ponder the debates. I do believe that they could determine the election. And I do believe that Clinton should be our next President. I like the New York Times see that Trump as one of the worst if not the worst Presidential candidate.

So with all the hype, all the discussion of how the candidates should prepare, and what needs to happen at them, I figure I will offer my two cents. Basically I want to touch on several themes that I hope will differentiate the candidates:

• Immigration: It is amazing the range of :facts out there regarding immigration. Stories of refugees getting all kinds of government benefits, and those out of status - "illegal aliens" getting various tax credits. That said, I would love to see a hearty defense of immigration. Why we do welcome immigrants and refugees, perhaps not with special benefits and tax credits, but still true to the words on the Statue found in New York harbor. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

• Global Warming: Something we can not see and many of us do not believe exist. It is something that the Department of Defense perceives as a threat. It is something that those working for the State of Florida cannot reference, but regardless are dealing with today. Here I would want to see science appealed to and defended. It is science that allows us to grasp the concept of global warming, and to ignore it is to deny or dispute science. 

• Foreign Policy: We have ISIS and terror, we have trade agreements, we have China, we have North Korea, and Iran. We have NATO and our allies. Are there common themes or strategies here? Is each of these unique? What is an appropriate strategy to determine trade policies and who is an ally, and who is an enemy, and all of this is based on what? 

• Lastly our heritage - who are we: All of us want America to be great. Trump wants to make America great again. Clinton has responded that America is and has always been great. Which is it? What is our history, our heritage? What has been and what are our challenges? I do believe that those issues that haunt us today, have been with us since Philadelphia in 1776, and 1787. They have challenged us is in 1861, and 1890, in 1929 and 1945, and beyond. The jobs, the immigrants, the races, education and science, and more. They all bring us back to our heritage and what in that heritage is to be appealed to.

So we shall see. These are themes I am curious about. I am more than curious about them. These are the themes I want fleshed out. I really do not know what we will get.

Trump, Sanders, and the Political Parties

I listen to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump lament the state of both political parties. Both have claimed at various times that the parties have it rigged and that the system favors those favored by the party.

No doubt it is a mess with some states having primaries and others having caucuses. and then who can participate in those. In some states you have open primaries, meaning any registered voter can vote in the primary. Others you have to be affiliated with the party - meaning you would have to have checked that you are either a Democrat or Republican when you registered to vote in the primary. In the case of new York, where the primary was in March - You had till October 2015 to update your political affiliation. And God knows how you would do that. Probably not online.

Those are the things that factor into being able to vote and how and who can do that. Then once those primaries happen you have the delegates. In both parties you have the super delegates and the assigned delegates. Each having certain privileges and together determining who is in fact that party's candidate.

So it is no doubt confusing and perhaps it simply is NOT democratic. Regarding the confusion it probably would be a good thing if there was some uniformity regarding primaries. Perhaps eliminate the caucuses embraced by various states. Perhaps, decide across the country identical practices as to who can vote in the primaries. Perhaps. Regarding such changes, however, it goes to a key question: who would determine such changes. Who would impose such changes? The National parties are simply not able to tell the various state and local parties that make them up what to do locally.

That desire for local autonomy can be seen not only in this debate on parties but also in our national debate on education. Typically education is handled and funded locally. The federal government plays little role in education, and by education I am referring to K though 12. This is the cry regarding a national curriculum or any other attempt by the federal government or even at times the state governments to intrude upon local control of education.

It is not just education. Insurance is regulated largely at the state level. That is why we needed fifty separate websites for Obamacare. Insurance is controlled and regulated slightly different in each of our states. If the federal government ever decided to start a battle royale with the state governments, attempting to supervene or overrule state insurance policy could be it. That is why I found it a little disingenuous of the Republicans to suggest that the solution was not Obamacare but to allow insurers to work across state lines. So much for the party that holds the Constitution in esteem, and with it Federalism and the concept of states' rights. They were certainly willing to strip away the states's right to regulate insurance and commerce on that occasion.

I digress. The discussion is parties, specifically the Republican and Democratic parties. The charges are that they are confusing, perhaps chaotic and further that they are non-democratic. Regarding the charge of confusing, it is true. They are confusing. That said, they are run locally at the state, city and county level. To challenge that is to challenge a core piece of who we are. At least in the US, all politics are local. If you want to change and simplify the process you either do it locally or you convince the local parties to give up power so as to allow things to be simplified. Good luck on that.

The more interesting charge, which is also true, is that the parties are rigged and non-democratic. That is the nature of parties. It goes to this idea that the US is not a democracy. We are a representative government. The party system facilitates that government. Now it could be argued that a representative government is no longer appropriate or needed for the US. That considering that most people today have at least a high school education, are literate, and simply have a better grasp of the world than the population of the US in 1787 - we no longer need representatives who will in fact decide for us. Such arguments routinely come up regarding the electoral college, but it is the same with political parties.

For the moment, let's agree to shelf that idea of a representative government no longer being needed. That is simply a broader topic which could lead us to the conclusion that we abandon the US Constitution. I simply have neither the time nor the energy for such a debate. The Federalist did - Hamilton, Jay, and Madison. Tonight, however, I want to simply defend political parties.

Specifically, I want to look at one key piece of the process. The one thing I want to explore after all this is the ideal of allowing all to vote in political primaries. It is suggested by both Trump and Sanders that we allow all to vote in primaries, regardless of party affiliation. In short, today you largely have to be a member of a political party to participate in its primary. Again that is largely true. It is contingent upon what state you are in but for the most part it is true. Both Trump and Sanders feel that such requirements limit participation in elections.

The fact that you need to be a member of a political party, however, is significant. It requires that you have some understanding of what the party is about, and likewise that you have some affiliation with that party and its members. It is something you do over time and in some cases over generations. Your affiliation with that party probably gives us insights about who you are, where you live, what you do, and what you believe. It provides meaning. You belong. You have a place. To be a member of a party is simply not to just hold certain ideas and beliefs, which often change like the weather.

I overstate the position but politics, affiliations, and the parties we build are developed over time and are built on shared experience and history. To allow for any and all to vote in party primaries, regardless of the improvement of turnout. is to neglect and ignore that shared history-the value of political parties. You can argue that parties are just rigged machines but you also challenge that which has driven American politics since the beginning - local self-governing organizations and institutions, with a history of local public and private affiliations. In place of parties you offer up rational individuals, who no longer need party apparatus and who will vote for candidates as they see fit.

I beg to differ, claiming that political parties, which offer up a political history or heritage to us and that are indeed not democratic, perhaps at times can save us from ourselves. They help remind us who we are and what we value and guide us regarding how we should proceed, based upon that history.

Abandoned In Wallington NJ

Has been awhile and pondering what I want to write. I do want to write pieces to follow up on and continue my ramblings about epistemology, the subject and subjectivity, and also political parties in the US. Tonight, however, it is something entirely different.

The view of 10 Midland from the Bratek / QuickChek parking lot. 

It started as a simple visit to my in-laws in Garfield this afternoon. Like any trip to my in-laws we hit the various Polish delis and stores along River Road. Simply necessary to get some good Kielbasa, Napoleons, vegetable salad and so forth to bring home. And of course some Wedel Chocolate too!

The length of 10 Midland from the road. What is it that grabbed this writer?

Along the way, however, right next to one of the delis in fact, was this building, which just turned my head. A now abandoned, but still visible, still standing - an old early-twentieth century factory. With several wings. All of it brick, basically two stories high.. The front facade running the length of Midland Avenue was the longest. Perhaps a football field in length? Various wings angled behind that front section on each side. The windows had since been boarded up. The roofs were gone. It was just the walls, once red now reddish-brown brick.

Windows boarded up and roof gone, but the brick facade is still there.

The one section where the roof survived had that crowning clerestory allowing natural light into that wing. It is only appropriate that at the height of these buildings, these engines of the industrial economy they represented and supported, that they had these clerestories. You see them routinely in such buildings. I imagine they allowed some light and perhaps also allowed the heat and the smells and God knows what else to escape. Regardless it was appropriate in some way that such factories lift and borrow these architectural devices originally found in churches and cathedrals.

The clerestory, which is still there. 

Functional benefits I am sure providing light and allowing heat to escape. Such buildings were not built with symbols in mind. Who knows, maybe the architect appreciated such history, but the factory owner probably would not see the cultural relationship between a cathedral and his factory.

For me it is exactly that fact that grabbed me. Such buildings, such factories are what drove this country and this region. Despite all the issues we have with industry it still is how this country established itself in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Certainly the north-east from the turn of the century till the seventies.

It just seemed to call to me. 

That is why I see the clerestory as an appropriate piece to crown the factory and to have it descend from the Christian cathedral. Both the cathedral and the factory were organizing principles for civilizations and for communities. Both focus on place and leaves me wondering what is the organizing principle for today. Where is our place?

I digress. The symbolism of the clerestory is but one piece of this story. The other piece is that we abandoned this building. It appears from the web it was not that long ago but we abandoned it. From Google Earth, it looks like it was not too long ago that the building and all were in use. Garfield Molding at 10 Midland Avenue in Garfield is still listed as a functioning business on the web. One site claimed a current annual revenue of several million - do not believe everything you read on the web! The address is not listed on any EPA Superfund list or anything. It does appear to have needed to remove an oil tank back in 1988. Today, however, it is just gated, concealed and fenced, with its roofs now gone, and with a realtor's sign slapped on it.

What is it like to just walk away? What is required for the owners to close such a facility and allow it to just collapse? What is it like for the town and the neighbors to not take interest in what has happened there. I am assuming there was little or no interest. At least none that I could find in my very quick search on the web regarding 10 Midland Avenue, Garfield NJ.

Last thoughts on this is to consider two thing that came out of such abandonments. The first is simple. We abandoned industry, and with that the monies that came out of it. Industry might have been dirty but it paid and this is probably one reason we care not for the husk of such a building. It perhaps poisoned and ultimately just faded or left.

The second, as we are talking Bergen County and the Passaic River is the Capital Theater. It was one of the best venues for Rock and Roll in that area, located in the city of Passaic. That venue and the music that was played there thrived in the seventies and eighties as the factories closed. Kind of like Birmingham and Black Sabbath or closer to home Springsteen and Asbury Park or Freehold. Sadly, the Capitol Theater is long gone. Demolished to make way for a strip mall I believe. Regardless, there is a relation between our industrial past and rock.

Making Sense of Revolutions and Bernie Sanders?

Politics for me is basically something to consider and sadly to entertain. for the most part I will watch, like many people, the various commentaries and analysis offered in the evening hours on cable TV. Once in awhile there is a provocative point found but in general it is simply background as I digest and relax. Something to watch till Elementary or whatever is on.

With the Presidential election happening however, and this one does seem to be special, it has provoked me to put my thoughts down or better yet on the screen here. Bernie Sanders especially provokes me. Basically, a nice man but on so many levels concerning. 

Tonight I focus on one theme: Revolution. 

Revolution is a word that many are intrigued with and Bernie Sanders often enjoys playing with it. He routinely uses it in his speeches. Revolution entails destruction, and for Bernie Sanders it is political and social destruction. He wants to to dramatically change the political and social landscape - through a democratic process. He is not suggesting or encouraging violence. He uses the term "Revolution" to allude to the severity and the dramatic nature of the changes he desires to make. 

Again, in no way is he suggesting any type of literal violent action. He uses the term "Revolution" to inspire and captivate his audiences. His revolution will happen democratically. That said the term still goes hand in hand with his boast that he is a socialist, granted a democratic socialist. In short, you have a socialist, who is not a socialist, pleading for a revolution, that may or may not be a revolution. 

Enough said about Mr Sanders. I want to focus now on the story of revolution. The conclusion I want to arrive at is that though we routinely learn about and hold in high regard the American Revolution, revolution is really not an American phenomenon. Perhaps, a better way to phrase it is that what we refer to as the American Revolution was really not a revolution. Despite all our talk we are not a country that has embraced revolution. 

I offer nothing all that new here. I actually defer to an author, Edmund Burke,  and his various letters, speeches, and pamphlets written in the late eighteenth century. Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament, offers much on revolution. He attempted to defend the colonies in the English Parliament of that period, arguing that as English subjects, the colonist had a legitimate grievance regarding the taxes imposed upon them, and further argued against the war that followed in America. He likewise witnessed, again from England, the destruction of the French Revolution, the guillotine, the Reign of Terror, and the rise of the French Republic, which ultimately led to Napoleon.

Further, as an Englishman of the eighteenth century, Burke inherited the results and history of the Glorious Revolution, which took place in the England in the late seventeenth century. During that time the Monarchy was replaced ever so briefly with a Republic. The Glorious Revolution is a story in itself, For now let us simply say that the English decided after a brief period that a Constitutional Monarchy was preferred. 

So what can we gain from this sparse summary of the late eighteenth century? In short, we have three revolutions: The English Glorious Revolution, The American Revolution, and the French Revolution. The first two basically have preserved the traditions and institutions of a people. The English maintained much of what they had for centuries, and returned to Monarchy. Perhaps it was a more limited monarchy, but still a Monarchy. The Americans Revolution again largely preserved what they had for a time lost under late British rule. In short, I am arguing that what we called the American Revolution was an act of preservation. To neatly sum up the American Revolution, we were simply protecting our property from an over-reaching English monarch turned tyrant. 

The French Revolution was not initiated to preserve. It was the destruction of a state. it was the complete elimination of the monarchy, the ruling classes, and the institutions associated with those classes and monarchy. Ultimately it led to the Terror of 1793 which involved the purge of any and all perceived to be enemies of the Revolution. This revolution largely is a precursor to those following in the twentieth century - the Russian and Chinese Revolutions. 

Going back to Burke, or at least my appeal to him, the key question regarding whether something is a revolution goes to its intent. Does a person or movement intend to dramatically change the traditions and institutions of a land or people or preserve them? A true revolutionary sees existing traditions and institutions as corrupt, as totally and inherently corrupt, and with that requiring to be removed, exorcised, and eliminated. 

Go back to the American Revolution. Once we chased the British out, things largely returned to how they were. We basically preserved our property. In the process of doing, however, we also created a new nation. That said, even then our laws and our approach very much borrow from the British, just minus the monarch. We had no purges, we did not eliminate any traditions, classes or institutions aside from those who considered themselves allied to the British and their monarch. Existing colonies became states, and their local government continued and thrived. You can see in this the kernel of Federalism. And all (granted all white males at that time) were welcome to the American cause. Those who felt sympathy for the British went to Britain. 

For Burke, it was all about the preservation of tradition. For him to govern requires not only law, but an appreciation of the customs, traditions and the heritage of a people. Further the law needs to built on those customs and traditions. Those who appeal to such a mix will thrive. Those who ignore such concerns risk much. Burke appealed to these themes again and again not only regarding the French and the Americans, but the Indians (as in India) and English.

Burke's thoughts have largely become the foundation of English conservatism and I would argue political conservatism in general. I would like to think it also alludes to Darwin and the idea of evolutionary change. Granted we are now mixing biology and politics, but still the story of how a species survives through a slow gradual series of progressions does sound like Burke. Perhaps it is better to point to the American Progressive movement, which aims not at revolution but the improvement of social conditions and people.    

  

A Summary. . .

Three out of the last four postings have been tied together by the common theme of consciousness.

Those posts include:

The Ramblings of a Rutgers Philosophy Student. . .

From One Story to the Next. . .

A Sense or Usage of the phrase "Becoming conscious"

Together, these do offer something of value. At least, I would like to think so, and with that have decided to summarize or reiterate some of the points I made in those posts. In fact, however, as I have tried to restate the positions previously written about, they have evolved and deepened. So perhaps this is more a revision as opposed to a reiteration and it is certainly no longer a summary.

Qualia and the "knowledge argument"

Qualia and the "knowledge argument" originate at least for my purposes in the Chalmers' article, Consciousness and its Place in Nature. In fact,both entail lengthy and ongoing debates in Philosophy of Mind. At the end of the day they both are used to challenge a materialist theory of consciousness.

Qualia is often associated with Thomas Nagel's paper "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" though in fact the term is not to be found in it. In short, qualia points to the challenges or perhaps the impossibility of knowing another's subjective experiences, whether they be bats, humans or others. 

The knowledge argument centers on a scientist who has all the facts about the brain, perception, the relationship of the eye and the brain at various levels. Yet, as she is colorblind and not able to see the color red, her knowledge would be incomplete. She knows every detail regarding the processes of perception and the brain - all the physical facts, and yet as she is colorblind she cannot possibly have complete knowledge of perception. She does not know the color red. She is not able to deduct or infer to the color red.

With that, for Chalmers and others, materialism is false. Here is this scientist with all the physical facts regarding perception and yet she does not know the experience of red. Likewise with the bat, as we are not bats and do not experience the life of a bat, we cannot know what it is like to be a bat. Both the scientist in relation to her "red" experience, and we in relation to bats are missing key pieces of knowledge. We or at least the scientist are missing the experiences of both red and bats despite the knowledge that we have. 

For me the qualia and the "knowledge argument" come down to our inability to experience - even with all the facts. Whether it be a feeling or sensation or the experience of another, we are just unable to bootstrap from material facts to experience. We cannot substitute physical facts for experience and it is this which causes problems for any materialist theory of consciousness. In short, these arguments suggest that no materialist theory of consciousness will ever be able to provide an explanation of the experience of consciousness. 

Qualia and the "knowledge argument" do lead to epistemic questions

The problem that both of these point to is a challenge to any theory of consciousness, materialist or otherwise. We can certainly develop a theory of our mental, emotional, and intellectual states. Regardless of its strength, however, it will not allow us to deduct or infer to subjective experience - i.e. consciousness. In the end that experience of consciousness, accepting the above arguments and thought experiments, is subjective and largely unknowable.

To say that something is unknowable does bring us to epistemology - to what it means or what is required to know something. I am intrigued with the prospect that there is something that is unknowable. There might be something that is hard to grasp, a puzzle or mystery, which is simply beyond us. In short, most things with enough time and money, we would like to think, can be known. To say, however, that something is unknowable is to say that it is different in kind. We can somehow grasp or glimpse it but apparently nothing more. and this is the case with subjectivity.

To say that a large chunk of human experience is unknowable is amazing. It is provocative, and we should not stop there. This should be properly broadened to the nature of conscious life - human and animal. It is this that we are suggesting is unknowable.

Now I disagree that there is a component of consciousness which is unknowable. This may be controversial, but there really is no mystery here. Look again at the bat. Can we not make some guesses about their lives and even experiences. And I think we can more than guess. Can we not feel sympathy, sadness, even joy with them? Isn't that what the cable channel the Animal Planet brings to us - that these creatures, bats and animals in general are not that far removed from us? It may be a challenge to confirm that these sympathies are true but they are there. And I feel that the more we know of them, the more facts and "knowledge' we have, the more able we are to understand and sympathize with them. It may not be a deductive argument but there is something there.

Jump to the colorblind scientist. First off I have to suggest that her knowledge will never be complete even if she were not colorblind. Further the colorblindness may in fact open up or allow her to ask other questions - to see things that her peers with regular vision do not see, whether that be in front of them or in relation to the various theories and observations they are making regarding this domain. Even if it is not helpful, like any disability, one learns to work around it. Like the stroke victim who now has parts of his vision impaired, he or she comes to know to look around that patch. 

With that, I suggest two responses:

1. The first is to reject that consciousness is subjective and that experience is a deal breaker for any materialist theory of consciousness. Experience is a deal breaker only if it is subjective, but consciousness is not subjective. 
2. And number two is that epistemology must factor in or incorporate some account of experience or consciousness. The scientist's experience of red, though perhaps not subjective, needs to be richer than merely an observation or confirmation of the theories she holds to be true. This second point would no doubt become that much easier if experience and consciousness  were again devoid of subjectivity.

Two senses of the word "consciousness"

So if subjectivity is not the essence of consciousness, nor the stumbling block that is suggested, than what is consciousness. It simply becomes a massive research challenge with researchers of various stripes attacking it. These include Neuroscience, CS and AI folks, cognitive scientists, and the like. That said, and despite my lack of reading on the subject, I still want to offer two thoughts here, Both really not that controversial and complement my offerings above. 

I did in A Sense or Usage of the phrase "Becoming conscious" offer up this idea of a sense or usage, which was introduced to me way back in Philosophy 101. I want to rely on that approach here again and offer up two senses of the word "consciousness". I am not meticulously sticking to that method, but none the less I think I can point to two usages of the word. 

So the first is simply a "stream of consciousness". There are massive amounts of data that the brain processes. In fairness there is a lot that it is assumed processed, but probably not. The data however and information that is in fact process is massive and the sources numerous. Language just scratches the surface, There is tactile, audio, visual and various internal sources, meta-data and various other types of processed data. All rely on various data streams and likewise sources of those streams, whether they be our fingers, ears, or parts of the brain. 

Further, we are not conscious of all streams. Far more is dealt with without us even considering it. It is much like a computer's OS, which has an amazing number of scripts and processes that we have little or no knowledge of, and yet are able to use and take advantage of it in numerous ways. So these streams allow for the proper functioning of the whole system, which is very much a Neumannesque architecture or Turing machine, but all neurologically based. 

Now these streams could provide an alternative explanation of why our knowledge gives little insight into colors percieved or the like. It turns out what is percieved and what is known are two different streams. That needs more elaboration, but it is probably tied to a story about how that gulf between conscious and subconscious is bridged.  

It is here that I appeal to my second sense - the "Aha moment", (which is not to be confused in anyway with the 80's band A-ha). This piece I have elaborated in at least two of my previous posts. In a nutshell, most of the processing is done without our awareness. There are moments, however, when we do become conscious of something. 

Traditionally these are moments when homunculi and other "ghosts in the machine" are suggested or hinted at. Of course we want to find a solution to this without reliance on such explanations, but for the moment I just want to just point to those moments when we become conscious. They are fight or flight moments-often involving novel thoughts, perceptions, and behavior. We are jarred to consciousness. And it these moments when we do see red that we feel the most alive. 

Evolution and Consciousness:

Lastly, these two senses, which do need some more flesh and bones no doubt, lead me to two final thoughts. 

The first is that we are left with a functional system that has evolved from a small limited  set of original functions and related streams to a very rich robust range of possibilities. The crown of which is consciousness, allowing us even more reach because of this ability to tap into existing streams, functions, and data sets in ever new and useful ways, The richness and multitude of the streams we now have access to provide us with so much more than just the original options of fight or flight. 

I am especially intrigued with the evolutionary value of jokes and metaphors. For me these were the original aha moments I was referencing. As Eminem says, much is said in jest. Our ability to see and grasp humor and see something different from the intended is a key to consciousness. To grasp more fully what these are, how they work, what they entail could be very useful to an evolutionary tale of consciousness. 

Lastly, we need to review our epistemic tenets, our theories of what knowledge is and entails. Like our option of fight or flight, our theories of knowledge require amendment. Much of what we hold to be knowledge, or forget knowledge, what is in those data-streams, may or may not be true or justified. Yet that is what we hold knowledge to be. The hint of the story offered above and the mix of AI, neuroscience and cognitive science that lead to such require an update of our theories of knowledge. Ideally one that does allows access to others and further allows for jokes and metaphor. 

A Sense or Usage of the phrase "Becoming conscious"

So to recap once again this saga began with The Ramblings of a Rutgers Philosophy Student. . . In that post I looked back at a Philosophy of Psychology class I had back in 1990, and a Meetup I recently encountered  in New York focused on Analytical Philosophy. That group or Meetup was reading a paper written by  David Chalmers reviewing the literature regarding theories of consciousness. The paper and that Meetup, which I never made it to, brought me back to that class and the lessons I missed back in 1990. In short, the meetup and paper brought me to some ideas of my own on the matter, and likewise to the writings of Daniel Dennett. He is an author who has been on the periphery of my thought for sometime now.

I continued this theme in, From One Story To The Next. In that post I quickly summarized Chalmer's paper and at the end offer a hint of my own thoughts on the topic of consciousness. In this post I want to continue on that project, hopefully elaborating on that last paragraph of the above post and likewise, connect those thoughts to what I see in Daniel Dennett's work. Specifically, in his book Consciousness Explained.

In that last post, I suggest that one becomes conscious the moment something does not go according to plan. To borrow from AI, the mind is like a computer in that it has a range of scripts and programs allowing us to get through the day and much of that is performed unconsciously. It is not until the heart stops beating, or we do not see the taxi as we cross the street until it is too late, or the one that most intrigues me, the fact that we navigate through a crowd place such as Grand Central during rush hour not thinking, until we do almost walk into somebody.  It is not until the near-miss or in fact the collision that our attention is focused. It is at such moments that we become conscious of something.

Way back when I took Philosophy 101 with a Professor Gerri Jones at Somerset County College, he introduced to us the concept of a 'sense', of how a word was used or made sense in a sentence versus its meaning. I later was introduced to Wittgenstein and Austin, and Frege. I am not sure where or who Professor Jones was coming from in his exploration of the sentence. I know the class spent its time analyzing the sentence, "The sun rises in the east". Regardless, his focus on how a word is used, it's sense is useful here. My offering regarding consciousness is focused on "being or becoming conscious" in a particular situation or moment, a particular usage of the word "conscious".

Before I return to that, I also want to highlight a second point I touched upon in that earlier post. That second point is regarding my question of how far removed is life as a bat? I suggest that there is as much of a gap between a bat as between our fellow man or woman. It seems we ultimately do or we do not know as much about their internal lives as we do the bat. We can infer about each but in the end we do not know with certainty what any of them truly think, feel, or experience. We do know enough about each to inform us and allow us to live with them and ideally thrive with them.

This question of what we know of the internal lives of others, bats and humans, however, brings me to ask what is required of knowledge in our lives versus the what is required in epistemology to be classified as knowledge. In short, philosophy offers one view of knowledge, our daily lives another, and the methodologies of our various sciences both hard and soft offer yet other variations. In short, it is largely in philosophy that we have an issue of qualia. And this issue is more an issue of epistemology, of what we know and what is sufficient to say that we know. That topic, I want to deal with in my posts embracing the terminology of Beavis and Butthead. (Not my finest work no doubt. . .)

So let us return to the first issue, the sense of being or becoming conscious. Those moments where we recognize an issue or problem and ideally correct it. That for me is the key to consciousness. Not qualia, which I want to classify as an epistemic issue. Consciousness is our ability to override a routine or stop doing something and experiment or try something different - that is what consciousness is. It is the perception of difference, and with that the adaptation of new or old routines.

I have in these posts relied on two or three examples or cases. The situation where you are walking across the street, not paying attention to the fact that there is taxi coming right at you, until you do realize it, until you become conscious of it and freeze in your tracks, or take a step back or get hit. The other that I use is the bear in the woods. Again you are not conscious of it, and then you are conscious of it. And then you run like hell or are mauled. In both of these, there are solutions available assuming you have a moment and ultimately choose wisely.

Daniel Dennett in his book latches on to I believe the same theme. He is, however, after much more. He wants to provide a materialist story eliminating the need for any homunculi watching or monitoring the scripts and programs I suggest. All is automated for him. There is in his story no system operator insuring that the proper script is embraced or applied. He was in 1991 providing a solution or a direction for neuroscience and AI to perhaps embrace. I offer you his hypothesis, which his book defends:

Human consciousness is itself a huge complex of memes (or more exactly, meme-effects in brains) that can be best understood as the operation of a "von Neumannesque" virtual machine implemented in the parallel architecture of a brain that was not designed for any such activities. The powers of this virtual machine vastly enhance the underlying powers of the organic hardware on which it runs. but at the same time many of its most curious features., and especially its limitations, can be explained as the byproducts of the kludges that make possible this curious but effective reuse of an existing organ for novel purposes. (p. 210, Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett, 1991)

In short, my offering is but just a part of the picture Dennett paints of consciousness in a brain using the AI / computer science to support and facilitate the story. My one sense or use of "being conscious" requires much of his mechanics. What intrigues me with his account is not only that he provides a story of consciousness eliminating the homunculi in the control room, but, and for me this is the more interesting part, he explains the higher level processes - those moments when we deviate from the usual scripts and processes, those moments when we are in my sense conscious. Even in his brief hypothesis he ends talking of how such a system results in novel thought and behavior, how it reinvents and reuses existing processing techniques and tools. We dodge the crazy cabby or we in fact hail it. 

Why Dumbass?

My last post was titled, "Some dumbass thoughts on Paris and ISIS. . .". No doubt a silly title but there was a point. The post simply asked some questions regarding ISIS. In a nutshell, the post asks whether ISIS is self-interested, and if it is, how or why would it initiate an attack on Paris.

That was what that post was about. The title, "Some dumbass thoughts. . . " however alludes to something else. For myself and probably for most, dumbass traces back to Beavis and Butthead. It was Butthead's refrain to the often nonsensical stuff coming out of Beavis' mouth. In hindsight, maybe Beavis was not always offering nonsense, but that is a whole different discussion. Going back to my post, and to borrow from Butthead, the title does point to something perhaps nonsensical.

There is, however, a disconnect here, as there is really nothing too nonsensical in my post. The post simply asks what is ISIS thinking, considering that such attacks as Paris will only reinforce and confirm the wests need to engage and destroy them - to eliminate the threat. I may not have the specifics right but in general it seems to be a legitimate question.

So why do I refer to my post as a collection of dumbass thoughts? I have already given above one hint regarding the specifics. I did not go into who the attackers were, where they in fact originated from, and what their actual relationship to ISIS was. So the neglect of details is a problem. That, however, is just part of it. The larger issue is our general willingness to espouse a position without full knowledge of the subject. I might have chosen to not go into such details, but one would hope that if you discuss a topic you have some understanding of it.

In this case, I know little about ISIS, or the events that took place in Paris. I know no more than the rest of us who sat stunned and saddened by what we saw on the TV and web during that time. That, however, is where dumbass thoughts come from - a willingness to talk about and make assertions about things we perhaps know little if anything about.

Today, it feels like, and this post might again be more of the same, but it does feel like we allow for, encourage and accept much that is really not known. The sources are easy to name. The web with all its dark corners and alleyways is of course loaded with all kinds of information, much true, a lot that is blatantly false, and good amount that is a mixed bag. On top of that, we have cable and talk radio, which focus on the political realm. And then you have of course the ongoing Presidential election and the resulting soundbites from Donald Trump and others. Another domain where you see this is regarding science, and pseudo-science. Just look at our discussions of global warming or vaccines.

So today, with the demise and shrinkage of local papers and print, we have turned to the web and to cable TV. With that, we do have a diversity of views and opinions-much of which I might term dumbass. The question becomes are these various views and positions dumbass? Are they knowledge? Do we or should we care?

So that is largely what I alluded to in using the term dumbass. That said, I do think the term does raise several issues regarding much of what we consider fact or knowledge, of how we treat or neglect the information available to us today. It is often joked that philosophy offers little to its students, but an appeal here to epistemology, the study of what it is to know, of what is required to claim knowledge, might just be appropriate. It could at the very least further broaden our understanding of what it is to be a dumbass.

To be continued. . .