• Daemon
    591
    That the substance that the universe is composed of is essentially consciousness? — Watchmaker


    That's what I think, yes. — bert1


    I wonder what the motivation is? I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the mechanisms for consciousness are in our brains, we can switch them off and on. I see that some things are not conscious, rocks, dead people or dogs. I think bacteria for example aren't conscious (because we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes), but they do have something which is a prerequisite for consciousness, they are individuals, separated from their environment.

    This stuff is surely super-important?! Whether we ourselves and other items are conscious or not really matters to us.

    So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious. — Daemon

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    I wonder what the motivation is? — Daemon


    There are a number of different motivations depending on the panpsychist, I think. Some panpsychists take a very conceptual approach think that it impossible to make sense of the idea of the emergence of consciousness because the concept does not seem to admit of degree. Goff and Antony develop this line of reasoning.

    Panpsychism can be motivated by an examination of the various binding problems, when we look for candidates in nature that can fulfil the binding function, we can see that space relates its contents, and fields are also present at every point in space, so perhaps consciousness is a property of space. This has some intuitive appeal for me as it fits with the phenomonology quite well.

    Some panpsychists do think that consciousness emerges, and is reducible to a kind of function, it's just that this function occurs in everything, so consciousness is also in everything. The IIT is an example of this. The IIT is a very different kind of panpsychism, and very differently theoretically motivated.

    Some panpsychists are motivated by idealism. Timothy Sprigge is one of these. If you think of Berkeley, but take out the role God plays in maintaining the existence of the external world of ideas, and substitute panpsychism - everything exists in a vast web of mutually perceiving and mutually defining subjects, then I think that is close to Sprigge's view.

    Some panpsychists are no doubt motivated by spiritual views, they have already come to the conclusion that consciousness is present at the start of everything, and think that everything after that point will therefore also be conscious, as all subsequent existing things are modifications of the original conscious substance.

    One can also come to panpsychism by an examination of psychological causation and the problem of overdetermination - the only causation we actually know happens is psychological - we cause out arm to go up, for example. But this seems to compete with other, physical, causal accounts involving neurons firing. One way out of this puzzle is to reduce physical causation to psychological, and assert that what we normally refer to as forces in the world are actually wills, and the behaviour of matter is determined by how it feels. The slogans might be 'matter does what it does because of how it feels' and 'how matter feels is determined by what it does'.

    Panpsychism is attractively monistic. If the basic starting properties in a typical physical explanation of the world (e.g. mass, charge, spin, extension, whatever the latest list is) are not enough to explain everything, one way to fix this is to add a starting property, namely consciousness, especially if the alternatives are more theoretically problematic.

    Another way to come at panpsychism is by process of elimination. Consciousness either (a) doesn't exist, or at least isn't what it appears to be (eliminativism) (b) emerged (was around at the start and arrived on the scene later - this is the majority view I suspect), or (c) was here from the start and exists in everything. Pick the least problematic option. This is the Churchill approach - "Panpsychism is the worst theory of conciousness apart from all the others."

    And there's more motivations, and many sub-variants...

    I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the mechanisms for consciousness are in our brains, we can switch them off and on.

    Well, maybe. When we switch consciousness on and off, are we switching consciousness? Or are we switching identity on and off? How could we tell the difference between non-consciousness and non-existence, phenomenologically?

    I see that some things are not conscious, rocks, dead people or dogs.


    I understand your intuitive starting point. But can these distinctions be maintained? Philosophers will want answers to the following questions: What are you seeing exactly? And what follows from that about consciousness? Why aren't people and dogs conscious? How do you know? What constitutes evidence for consicousness?

    I think bacteria for example aren't conscious (because we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes), but they do have something which is a prerequisite for consciousness, they are individuals, separated from their environment.


    Well, that's very interesting. You have the start of a theory, or at least line of enquiry. I would question whether we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes - when we get to the level of forces, we end up saying 'that's just what happens'. But if those forces are wills, we can go, perhaps, one step further into something we can understand - 'because that's what they will'. Conversely, lets take humans. If we can explain bacterial behaviour in terms of non-conscious processes, why can't we do the same with humans? Maybe Apo has an answer - that human behaviour cannot be explained in the kind of bottom-up way that perhaps bacterial behaviour can. And I suspect Apo will say the same about bacteria - there is top down stuff going on there too which is necessary to understand bacterial behaviour. But even if he is right, I don't see how that entails consciousness.

    This stuff is surely super-important?! Whether we ourselves and other items are conscious or not really matters to us.


    Indeed.

    So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious.


    I don't think panpsychists does lose the distinction. I can conceive of a rock that isn't conscious. the concept of non-consciousness still has meaning, even if I think that nothing is in fact non-conscious.
  • Banno
    23.1k

    What motivates panpsychism?

    An old paper by Russell, which came up in a recent thread on causation, offers an explanation. An excessive reliance not the notion of cause might lead folk to suppose that cause and effect must resemble one another, or that cause is analogous to volition.

    ...what are termed the nobler parts of our nature are supposed to be inexplicable, unless the universe always contained something at least equally noble which could cause them...

    The paper is "On the notion of cause".

    It seems odd that folk suppose consciousness to somehow be central to the nature of the universe when it is so easily dissipated in one's lounge chair on a slow Sunday afternoon. Sleep should cure one of panpsychism.
  • Daemon
    591
    Hi Bert1,

    Thanks for the descriptions of the various panpsychisms. I think I have the same problem with all the versions, and additional problems with some of them.

    When I ask what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and non-conscious, I mean that a panpsychist loses that distinction in their description of the world. But it seems to me that the more distinctions there are in your description, the better.

    We want to explain why some things are conscious and some things aren't. Saying that everything is conscious doesn't make any contribution to that.

    Some panpsychists take a very conceptual approach think that it impossible to make sense of the idea of the emergence of consciousness because the concept does not seem to admit of degree — Bert1

    It's not clear to me why emergence would require "degree". I'd suggest that consciousness initially emerged as a (chance) development of non-conscious biological processes. As well as being able to unconsciously sense, some organism was able to feel heat or to see light.

    perhaps consciousness is a property of space. This has some intuitive appeal for me as it fits with the phenomenology quite well. — "Bert1

    How do you mean?

    The IIT is a very different kind of panpsychism, and very differently theoretically motivated. — Bert1

    I've looked into that, in my opinion it's a total failure.

    take out the role God plays in maintaining the existence of the external world of ideas, and substitute panpsychism - everything exists in a vast web of mutually perceiving and mutually defining subjects, then I think that is close to Sprigge's view — Bert1

    Sounds pretty wacky. These mutually perceiving subjects, do they include, like, rocks? And does "perceive" mean what it means when we perceive something?

    When we switch consciousness on and off, are we switching consciousness? Or are we switching identity on and off? — Bert1

    Both. Well, there are two types of identity (in my way of thinking), there's the felt identity you get through consciousness, but also an unconscious organism like a bacterium has an identity: it is an entity, separated from its environment.

    the only causation we actually know happens is psychological - we cause our arm to go up, for example. But this seems to compete with other, physical, causal accounts involving neurons firing. — Bert1

    Descriptions at two different levels. That's good. The more distinctions, the more we understand. What's the problem?




    Well, that's very interesting. You have the start of a theory, or at least line of enquiry. I would question whether we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes - when we get to the level of forces, we end up saying 'that's just what happens'. But if those forces are wills, we can go, perhaps, one step further into something we can understand - 'because that's what they will'.
    — Bert1


    A bacterium can swim towards a desirable chemical, say a food source. To do this it needs to able to tell whether the concentration of the chemical is rising or falling over time, which seems to require a memory, which is an aspect of consciousness.

    However, we know in astounding detail how the bacterium does this, we can describe the process fully in terms of chemical reactions, without having to talk about the bacterium feeling, experiencing, being conscious. There's an explanation here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/comments/S0960-9822(02)01424-0

    Here's a snippet:

    Increased concentrations of attractants act via their MCP receptors to cause an immediate inhibition of CheA kinase activity. The same changes in MCP conformation that inhibit CheA lead to relatively slow increases in MCP methylation by CheR, so that despite the continued presence of attractant, CheA activity is eventually restored to the same value it had in the absence of attractant. Conversely, CheB acts to demethylate the MCPs under conditions that cause elevated CheA activity. Methylation and demethylation occur much more slowly than phosphorylation of CheA and CheY. The methylation state of the MCPs can thereby provide a memory mechanism that allows a cell to compare its present situation to its recent past.

    There's not, I submit, any "will" in this scenario either. It looks like will, but the real driver is chance, natural selection. Only organisms equipped with the biochemical machinery that gets them swimming in the right direction will survive.

    Distinctions like these, between living and non-living and conscious and non-conscious items are necessary elements of our description of the world.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    I thought this was well known? The motivation is bound up in the problem of understanding ‘consciousness’. That there are many different people taking up the idea of panpsychism with various other motivations attached is secondary to the original point of trying to understand consciousness right?
  • bert1
    1.8k
    Yes, that's the broad picture.
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    How much is understood by intuition and how much by science? Intuition preceded science. I would say the entire universe is essentially a medium for consciousness, which I take to be a variant of panpsychism.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Science doesn’t understand anything because science isn’t a conscious being.

    To say that the universe is a medium for consciousness is no different than saying conscious being exist in the universe … which they do. That is not panpsychism it is just agreeing that conscious beings exist.

    A major concern I have for both deism and panpsychism is talk of ‘other forms of consciousness’ existing outside if human conscious comprehension. I don’t see why we would call this ‘consciousness’ at all.
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    Science doesn’t understand anything because science isn’t a conscious being.I like sushi
    Disingenuous...I said understanding takes place by (i.e. through) either intuition or science, I did not personify science.

    To say that the universe is a medium for consciousness is no different than saying conscious being exist in the universe … which they do. That is not panpsychism it is just agreeing that conscious beings exist.I like sushi

    I don't agree. Saying that water is a medium for a wave isn't the same thing as saying that the wave alone exists. The wave and the water are mutually necessary for there to be a wave. In the case of consciousness, however I think the wave and the water are mutually necessary for there to be either. Form and substance.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    So you are just saying using intuition and scientific thought helps us to understand things? What is this ‘intuition’ you speak of? Is it Kantian or just regular kinda ‘instinct’ talk?

    As a concept if there is no mind there is no ‘universe’ to speak of … as there is nothing to speak. I will grant you that. What I cannot see is an intelligible way to talk about ‘consciousness’ existing a few seconds after the big bang when there were no ‘conscious beings’ around. If there was a ‘being’ of sorts around it was most certainly not ‘conscious’ in any way we could begin to understand.

    We only have one point of reference for ‘consciousness’. Anything else in some other time/space is not ‘conscious’ in any reasonably comparable manner unless such a being possesses a host of common features to humans.
  • Daemon
    591
    I thought this was well known? The motivation is bound up in the problem of understanding ‘consciousness’.I like sushi

    I'm really wondering more about the motivation for putting consciousness everywhere, rather than where we actually have evidence for it.

    My own theory is that consciousness is a biological phenomenon, so it's found only where and when there are biological organisms. Consciousness to my way of thinking needs a locus. Some entity is conscious, has experiences.

    Entities arise through biology. Before single-celled organisms there was nothing with an inside and an outside, so to speak. That "individuation" is a precondition for consciousness, which arrives later, as an evolutionary development of non-conscious "sensing" processes in the organism.

    Organisms, entities which can have conscious experiences, aren't everywhere in space and time, so why does panpsychism want to put consciousness everywhere?
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    It is a reasonable step if you think about it. An animal cell can be alive yet it is not an ‘animal’ nor an ‘organ’. I think we can all agree that an animal requires animal cells and that animal cells, organs and full animals are alive.

    Panpsychism is following this train of thought because ‘consciousness,’ like ‘life,’ is not exactly easy to pinpoint in a discrete way. Life just happens to be more easily outlined than consciousness on a more tangible level.
  • Daemon
    591
    I don't follow your reasoning. Just because life isn't easy to pinpoint doesn't mean it's everywhere.

    In any case my idea is that life can be pinpointed, it starts when an organism is distinguished from its environment, initially by the cell wall.

    And because consciousness only happens in biological organisms, we can pinpoint it to that extent too.
  • bongo fury
    1.6k
    why does panpsychism want to put consciousness everywhere?Daemon

    To praise dualism while pretending to bury it.

    Why does emergentism want to put consciousness in self-organising systems?
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    I never said life was everywhere?

    My point was simply to compare a single cell to multi-cellar organisms (both being ‘life’). To view these drastically different items of ‘life’ is kind of like viewing ‘consciousness’ as being made up of smaller parts that are conscious just like living organisms are made up of singular living cells.

    This is not a view I find convincing I am just answering why panpsychism is a fairly reasonable point to suggest - it doesn’t necessarily have to mean every atom in the universe possesses an ‘element’ of consciousness; but some like to believe that.

    Consciousness, as far as I can reasonably tell, is something that happens in brains. How? Not really sure, and no one else is sure either so there is no harm in thinking outside the box and proposing something like panpsychism really … it is just not something that anyone can offer up a testable hypothesis for right now so it is mostly a speculative idea.
  • theRiddler
    260
    I think consciousness is just the natural self-identification that occurs when any particle is confronted with outside interference.

    An atom on its own may be infinitely aware, but when influenced by another atom it perceives more of what it means to be itself, through the force of having to perceive what it's not like to be the other. In other words, identity is formed in contrast with what we are not.

    And I believe this holds true down to the atom itself. Self-awareness is information in the discongruency between the self and the "alien."
  • Daemon
    591
    there is no harm in thinking outside the box and proposing something like panpsychism really … it is just not something that anyone can offer up a testable hypothesis for right now so it is mostly a speculative idea.I like sushi

    So, no motivation!
  • Daemon
    591
    There are no particles.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    What are you talking about? It is an idea as a means to approach a better understanding of consciousness. That is it.

    You may as well ask what motivates anyone to want to understand anything.
  • theRiddler
    260
    Give me a break, dude. What I said is far more interesting than the pedantic.

    I'll forfeit discussing particles and waves since no living human can address that question with any wisdom.

    But I think I bring up an interesting notion, that atoms self-identify when presented with the alien other. That this action creates a modicum of comprehension each time.
  • theRiddler
    260
    This life may be pure fantasy. There is no evidence to the contrary.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    There is no evidence that a spaghetti monster did not creat the universe either … so fucking what?

    There is a difference between pure fantasy and highly speculative ideas. Sadly it seems some think the line is somewhere I don’t.
  • theRiddler
    260
    Yes, it's our responsibility to analyze speculative ideas, not outright dismissed them as flying spaghetti monsters.

    And by the way, the idea that reality isn't a fantasy is also just speculation.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Okay smart arse … if life is ‘fantasy’ then all we know is ‘fantasy’ therefore the ‘fantasy’ is reality.

    Understand?
  • Daemon
    591
    There is a difference between pure fantasy and highly speculative ideas. Sadly it seems some think the line is somewhere I don’t.I like sushi


    What gets panpsychism out of the realm of pure fantasy?
  • theRiddler
    260
    It may be, bit it's a matter of how you react to life. Like, nothing is concrete, and would a mundane reality not be so temporal. How do we look at this. I am totally biased towards excitement and wonder, I admit. I despise being told reality is "just" anything.

    It actually is elementally fantastical. I think we need to overcome the hardwiring that tells us the Earth is flat, you know? It seems very...permanent, I guess, from an ignorant perspective. We would do ourselves a favor to view it more as a phantasm, more imaginary, purely from the surface of things.

    Knowing as we do entropy and the fact that we're spinning through space. There is nothing to be gained from the archaic perspective of flat earth.
  • RogueAI
    2.4k
    And because consciousness only happens in biological organisms, we can pinpoint it to that extent too.Daemon

    No machine consciousness?
  • Daemon
    591
    No, because:

    Entities arise through biology. Before single-celled organisms there was nothing with an inside and an outside, so to speak. That "individuation" is a precondition for consciousness, which arrives later, as an evolutionary development of non-conscious "sensing" processes in the organism.Daemon
  • RogueAI
    2.4k
    Entities arise through biology.Daemon

    I don't see why robotic entities can't be created through non-biological processes.

    Before single-celled organisms there was nothing with an inside and an outside, so to speak.Daemon

    This is unclear.

    That "individuation" is a precondition for consciousness, which arrives later, as an evolutionary development of non-conscious "sensing" processes in the organism.Daemon

    When did consciousness first arise?
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