Psych 137N lecture 3 notes: History of Ignoring Conscious Experience in Science Pt 1

Jargon that replaces experience

Science replaces words that describe ordinary conscious experience with ones that are more empirically and computationally tractable.

what are some examples of science replacing experience-based words?

Affect: a way of talking about feelings with a number scale.

Fit computational formulas to numbered feelings

Reinforcement

What are the reinforcement properties of a stimulus? (replaces pleasure)

visual processing instead sight.

retrieval instead of remember

science has a tendency to ignore

consciousness all together, or replace language or topics with jargon that is more scientifically tractable and not have to talk about consciousness because its is 'solved'

Democritus (400 BC) declared what?

everything is made of atoms.

Can subdivide, but at a certain point there needs to be a unit that cannot be divided.

This was a remarkably modern view. Essentially the ame as moderm 'materialism' that everything including the mind is physical

what did Democritus say about the mind?

it is nothing but the movement of these atoms

Ancient greeks made the parameters for what?

for the different scientific fields.

consciousness wasn't included and the way scientific enterprise has been set up has prevented any improvement on this subject matter

reinforcement vs pleasure.

a stimulus is often described as being reinforcing, but what about the stimulus is reinforcing? For example, there is no objective quality about candy that is reinforcing because the positively associated sweetness is only linked to subjective experience/personal taste. sweet is not intrinsically reinforcing for all.

Reinforcement does not replace pleasure because

reinforcement itself is incoherent without the concept of pleasure.

Schrodinger 1955 --> Objectivation:

the scientific tendency to treat things as objective separate entities, ignoring the role of human consciousness in shaping our understanding of reality.

Plato 360 BC discovered the

Theory of forms/platonic ideals

Pre-Socratics (the ionian school)- 600-400 BCE

-democritus, thales, etc were responding to subjectivity infused mythic narratives (the sea rages because poseiden is angry)

-for the first time in recorded history, they looked for rational physical explanations of nature without invoking myth or gods

What is the theory of forms/platonic ideals?

Plato says there are two realms, one of perfect forms like perfect mathematical circles, and the other of ordinary experience. Perfect circles only exist in formulas and cant be found in nature, but we still experience them as circles

look at the platonic ideals as a separation between things we can think about and things we can see

Things we can see are crappy imitations of the real thing that only exists in abstraction.

Galileo says that the laws of nature are written in the language of

mathematics

we don't study nature with math because

nature itself is math

Galileo believes that the way you experience things are

secondary to nature because nature is math

What are the things galileo called objective/ primary qualities? why?

Size, shape, location, motion

They are true and independent of us and consciousness

Third-person observable exists independent of any of us so are primary to galileo

what are secondary qualities for Galileo?

Tastes, odors, colors

Galileo believes that if living creatures were removed,

these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated.

Galileo believes that colors, tastes, and odors are no more than

a reaction to an object that we assign a name for. there is no real meaning but rather a reaction to the material.

in reality, colors are a

subjective experience that you need consciousness to have

What does Galileo's science do to the study of consciousness?

denigrates its importance because his science can't explain it.

What is Husserl's critique of Galileo 1970

Galileo gets it wrong because he overvalued abstract mathematical platonic view of the universe, and ignores immediate subjective experience. Views galileo as an intellectual exercise gone wrong.

Husserl critiques Galileo's contrast between

the subjectivity of the life world and the objective true world that lies in the fact that it's a theoretical logical construction, construction of something that is in principle not perceivable, not experienceable in its proper being,

whereas the subjective life world is distinguished in respect by it being experienceable.

Husserl says that all objective findings from science

depends on subjectivity to achieve that science

Methodological materialism (galileo)

The scientific practice rule: restrict explanations to observable, measurable, physical processes. Does not deny consciousness exists- it simply brackets it out of sicence

ontological materialism (modern science)

The metaphysical claim: only physical matter and nautral processes exist. Consiousness, if real, must ultimately be reducible to physical processes.

descartes 1641: Mind body dualism

similar to plato's theory of forms

"Mind and soul of the man is entirely different from the body"

The mental and physical realm

Intuitively fits within our own experience. thoughts and physical things.

Fatal flaw of dualism

If they are separate realms then neither can affect the other because they are separate realms.

how can the mind affect the body if they are seperate?

how did descartes try to justify dualism?

the pineal gland in the brain ist where the mind and body intersect and can affect each other. makes no sense

descartes is essentially responding to Galileo by saying

that even though the mind is not part of the physical realm, the mind has its realm with its own rules and should not be swept under the rug.

Intentionality

the 'aboutness' of consciousness

the aboutness of mental states — the fact that thoughts, perceptions, and desires are about something (e.g., you think about Paris, you hope for rain)

Franz Brentano (1874) believed that

Conscious thoughts are the only thing that are intrinsically about things.

Other things don't have aboutness, a soda can isnt about anything, it just holds a liquid

derived intentionality

Only exists because of the meanings and purposes imposed onto objects or symbols by those conscious beings

for example: Words are not intrinsically about anything, we have an agreed upon meaning that this word elicits an experience.

We derive an aboutness of something by creating its meaning. A sentence has no meaning on its own.

A word, a map, or a computer program only means something because a mind interprets it that way. The English word “cat” refers to cats, but only because we collectively agree that it does.
If there were no conscious beings, the squiggles “c-a-t” wouldn’t mean anything.

Intrinsic intentionality

humans have intrinsic intentionality. Our thoughts have aboutness because they are about something the instant they become thoughts. We don't need to interpret our thoughts to make it meaningful

When you think of Paris your mind immediately and involuntarily brings up a mental representation — maybe the Eiffel Tower, café life, the sound of French, or your own memories if you’ve been there.

That experience of Paris in your mind — your thought about Paris — has intrinsic intentionality, because it’s not borrowed from anywhere.

derived vs intrinsic intentionality

•Derived Intentionality

- Artifacts in the world (e.g., words) that are not intrinsically about anything

- Just like the color of an object depends on a conscious perceiver, what aword is about depends on a conscious perceiver

- Words only 'seem' to be about something because of the response theyproduce in us

•Intrinsic Intentionality

- Your thoughts are really about something, even if about somethingimaginary

- You can't describe your thoughts of Bora Bora, without ascribing'aboutness' to them

- Only conscious stuff has this characteristic

why is consciousness the course of intrinsic meaning in the universe

because our thoughts don't need to acquire additional observers like language does in order for them to have intentionality.

Introspection

the process of examining and reflecting on ones own thoughts, feelings, and conscious experiences to gain self-awareness or understanding of the mind

Introspectionism movement

believed only way to study the mind was through introspection. to study the mind, one had to get an understanding of their internal process. ask yourself questions

who led the introspectionist movment

wilhelm wundt and Edward Titchener

Titchner believed that you had to be what to be an introspectionist?

trained in the correct way--> indoctrinate one way of introspection so they could confirm their theories.

Titchener wants to study consciousness by

throwing away almost everything in consciousness except sensation. believes that other aspects of consciousness (perception, emotion, memory etc...) bias you and wants to eliminate bias.

Titchener's introspectionism (sensations)

Sensations: rock solid, irreducible data

can be objectively measured, eg hue, brightnes, pitch, intensity

Titchener's introspectionsism (the rest of consciousnes)

- theory ridden and biased

- when you say I feel angry, there can be lots of interpretation in bias that occurs between the actual snesations and this statement

The atomic theory of consciousness deeper

if there are atoms, indivisible molecules of the physical realm that compose all together life, why wouldn't there be that for consciousness?

The atomic theory of consciousness

What you experience is made up of mini little sensory experiences that all together give you the entire consciousness

The atomic theory of consciousness apple example:

Red is the color, round is the shape, smooth is the texture

Should be able to break it down and build it back together again

why does Titchener's atomic theory fail?

it ignores how we immediately experience the world using our preexisting understanding. Our experience cannot be reconstructed from the sensory 'atoms' alone. pre-existing biases can't be set aside because its central to how we experience the world in the first place.

- allows us to see a dime as circular and not be confused if its at a different angle.

Gestalt psychology (william james--> Karl stumpp--> many more)

emphasis on the whole being greater than the sum of the parts challenges the reductionist methods of the introspectionist

Thought the whole had privacy, and with effort and work, could tease apart the elements within that whole.

Gestalt psychology dot example

This visual demonstration shows how the mind organizes dots based on proximity, illustrating Gestalt psychology's principles of organization. highlights how perception is not just about sensory data like introspectionism thought but about how the mind imposes order based on its assumptions.

what is gestalt principle of organization?

essentially, there are rules by which the conscious mind imposes an organization on the world that goes beyond the world of the physical sensory elements

for example: Things that are close to each other are seen to have a connection

Freud

Freud's work on the unconscious mind extended the focus on consciousness, but his ideas were often criticized for being unfalsifiable. Despite this, Freud's emphasis on consciousness influenced popular and scientific views until behaviorism took over

End of the golden age of consciousness and the death of its research

Behaviorism

Psychology as the behavioral view is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. The theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior, introspection/consciousness forms no essential part of its method.

John B. Watson's behaviorism rejected the study of consciousness focusing purely on

observable behavior and needing to know the inputs to outputs and be able to predict