For instance, consciousness? — frank

If by consciousness you mean some kind of metaphysical quality that human brains have that is totally irreducible to any aggregate of qualities that the stuff brains are made of have, then yes. That’s strong emergence, of phenomenal consciousness, and it would be some weird spooky magic if it actually happened like that.

But if you instead mean a thing that brains do that is perfectly reducible to an aggregate of things that the stuff brain are made out of do, then no. That’s only weak emergence, of access consciousness, and it’s a normal and completely uncontroversial thing.

Why do you say emergence is illogical? — frank

There are many ways to show this, depending on the exact premises of emergence which are presented. The most simple and straight forward way, is something like what wayfarer presents. It's not logical that something experiential could emerge from something non-experiential.

It seems to me that his argument is concerned with creating a conceptual space for 'experience' (I would use the term 'being') in the objective domain - to say that, because he can't doubt the reality of experience, and because he's committed to the view that every real phenomenon is physical, then the physical must also be experiential. 'That is what I believe: experiential phenomena cannot be emergent from wholly non-experiential phenomena... Assuming, then, that there is a plurality of physical ultimates, some of them at least must be intrinsically experiential, intrinsically experience-involving....Given that everything concrete is physical, and that everything physical is constituted out of physical ultimates, and that experience is part of concrete reality, it seems the only reasonable position, more than just an ‘inference to the best explanation’. — Wayfarer

That’s strong emergence, of phenomenal consciousness, and it would be some weird spooky magic if it actually happened like that. — Pfhorrest

Why would it necessarily be weird spooky magic? And what do you mean by "magic" here?

not logical that something experiential could emerge from something non-experiential. — Metaphysician Undercover

I guess I was looking for a walk through that logic (if you have time).

Monistic idealists have been known to suggest that matter is an emergent property if mind, so perhaps this is again a mistake of logic?

Something from nothing, for no reason?

Something from nothing, for no reason? — Pfhorrest

You're wrong about weak emergence. A weakly emergent property is not reducible. The distinction is about truths specific to the emergent entity or property. Weakly emergent means those truths are unexpected. Strongly means those truths are not deducible (to truths about the lower domain).

So either way, something new is arising from the lower level. I wouldnt call it something from nothing, though.

Chalmers' essay on strong and weak emergence

A weakly emergent property is not reducible. — frank

A weakly emergent property will also emerge from a simulation of the underlying system. Simulate particles in of a gas just mechanically and you simulate temperature automatically.

Strongly emergent properties aren’t like that, and that’s what makes them like magic. You don’t just get them from some combination of the underlying behaviors, but they’re something else in addition to those parts and their arrangements.

I guess I was looking for a walk through that logic (if you have time). — frank

People tout emergence from all different angles, each requiring a different logical refutation. Show me the premises which would lead you to believe in emergence, and I'll show you how they are logically incoherent.

Monistic idealists have been known to suggest that matter is an emergent property if mind, so perhaps this is again a mistake of logic? — frank

No, I think that this is an opposite type of mistake. Rather than being a mistake of logic it is a denial of empirical evidence. If matter is just a human concept, then it is an emergent property of mind. But this idea would deny the evidence that "matter" refers to something independent from minds.

Strongly emergent properties aren’t like that, and that’s what makes them like magic. You don’t just get them from some combination of the underlying behaviors, but they’re something else in addition to those parts and their arrangements. — Pfhorrest

If we find strongly emergent properties, physics would have to be updated to cover whatever we missed. We wouldn't just throw up our hands and declare it magic.

To rule out strong emergence requires a declaration that physics, in its present form, is finished, so no upgrades are pending. Are you prepared to make that declaration?

If some updated physics could handle new, apparently strongly emergent properties, it would have to be by adding something to the fundamental constituents of physical stuff. Simulating those fundamental constituents, with the new physics, would then simulate the “strongly emergent” properties... this showing them to not have been strongly emergent at all. You’re basically saying that strong emergence is only relative to a particular incomplete account of physics, and on a complete, final account of physics, there would be nothing strongly emergent. Which is to say that in actual fact, nothing is really strongly emergent, at most it is mere unaccounted for by our present physics.

I'm a panpsychist because I think it's the most economical solution to a lot of thorny problems. But presumably I'm also in some ways a 'case' illustrating a general trend. I think there has been an implicit nebula of attitudes around the question, where being a panpsychist means you're 'soft' or not ' brave enough to accept the meaninglessness/contingency of consciousness' etc & that's a bummer. I think that nebula is fading, concomitant with shifts in cultural attitudes surrounding what a Serious Person believes, and that may account for some of it. Of course, the waning of a [Serious Person] wall around a possible solution doesn't recommend that solution, in-itself, only makes it less knee-jerk rejectable. You still have to articulate what you're trying to articulate. But I think the barriers are coming down.

You’re basically saying that strong emergence is only relative to a particular incomplete account of physics, and on a complete, final account of physics, there would be nothing strongly emergent. Which is to say that in actual fact, nothing is really strongly emergent, at most it is mere unaccounted for by our present physics. — Pfhorrest

So recall that the distinction between strong and weak emergence is in assessments of truths. Read the essay.

But presumably I'm also in some ways a 'case' in a general trend. I think there's an implicit nebula of attitudes around the question where being a panpsychist means you're 'soft' or not ' brave enough to accept of the meaningless/contingency of consciousness' & that's a bummer. I think that nebula is fading, concomitant with shifts in cultural attitudes surrounding what a Serious Person believes, — csalisbury

Is it a generational thing? Not to get too psychological, but when people insist on being strong, there could be some underlying fear.

The SEP says the peak of materialism was in the 1970s. Hmm.

My 2 qubits:

This 'speculation on mind' called "panpsychism" has always seemed to me nothing but a facile woo-of-the-gaps compositional fallacy proffered as a solution to the MBP which, for my money, was effectively dissolved in the 17th century by Spinoza [ ... ] — 180 Proof

" :fire: "

But Spinoza was a panpsychist.

Is it a generational thing? Not to get too psychological, but when people insist on being strong, there could be some underlying fear.

The SEP says the peak of materialism was in the 1970s. Hmm. — frank

I'm not sure. I think there's a thing of panpsychism=new age = intellecutaly-limp. There has to be a distance from the hippies, for sure.

As I post, I see that @180 Proof has stepped in with Bolds and references to Spinoza & references to his own posts & named fallacies. I think that illustrates better what I'm talking about that anything I could say would. That's about building fortresses.

I think we're moving away from needing to stay in fortresses, for whatever reason.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) provide examples of two distinct and formatively important versions of panpsychism. Spinoza regarded both mind and matter as simply aspects (or attributes) of the eternal, infinite and unique substance (ouisia, being) he identified with God Himself. In the illustrative scholium to proposition seven of book two of the Ethics (1677/1985) Spinoza writes: “a circle existing in nature and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing … therefore, whether we conceive nature under the attribute of Extension, or under the attribute of Thought … we shall find one and the same order, or one and the same connection of causes …”. We might say that, for Spinoza, physical science is a way of studying the psychology of God. There is nothing in nature that does not have a mental aspect—the proper appreciation of matter itself reveals it to be the other side of a mentalistic coin. 1 — SEP

That's about building fortresses. — csalisbury

My response isn't "about building fortresses", just laying my cards on the table so we can dispense with bluffs and bluster and call everyone else's hand. It's facile, at best (like angelology), thus panpsychism's "popularity". So smoke 'em if you got 'em, peeps.

↪180 Proof But Spinoza was a panpsychist. — frank

Really? How so? Or just account for why e.g. Hegel or Maimon ... or Deleuze are - as well as I am - mis-interpreting 'Spinozism (a)s acosmist' (and not e.g. "pan(en)theist" or "pan(en)deist" or "neutral monist" or "panpsychist" ...) :confused:

"The Presocratics were struck by a dilemma: either mind is an elemental feature of the world, or mind can somehow be reduced to more fundamental elements. If one opts for reductionism, it is incumbent upon one to explain how the reduction happens. On the other hand, if one opts for the panpsychist view that mind is an elemental feature of the world, then one must account for the apparent lack of mental features at the fundamental level." --SEP — frank

In my Enformationism thesis, I get around that apparent dilemma, by using a more modern understanding of the fundamental element of both Mind and Matter : Information. Panpsychism has typically been interpreted to mean that everything is conscious to some degree. But I substitute the 21st century scientific concept of ubiquitous "Information". From that novel perspective, everything in the world -- Matter. Energy, and Mind -- is a form of Information. In that case, human-like Consciousness ("mental features") is a high-level form of Information -- a late emergence of evolution. And there's no need to assume that a grain of sand is aware of it's environment. Therefore, I would rename that ancient notion as : Pan-enformationism. :smile:


Ubiquitous Information : The basis of the universe may not be energy or matter but information . . . . Although this line of thinking emanates from the mid-20th century, it seems to be enjoying a bit of a Renaissance among a sliver of prominent scientists today.
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/the-basis-of-the-universe-may-not-be-energy-or-matter-but-information

Panpsychism vs Enformationism : The August-September 2017 issue of Philosophy Now magazine explores the revival of a quaint antique worldview, Panpsychism (all is mind), as a way to come to terms with the paradoxes of Quantum Theory. For my own purposes though, I try to avoid the beguiling human-centric implications of “psyche”, and say instead that all is EnFormAction (creative energy, power to enform). Of course, Panpsychism is ridiculed by materialists, partly because proponents use the misleading anthro-morphic human-scale term “consciousness” when referring to the universal mind-like aspect of reality. Which is why I think the more-generic & less-leading term “information” is more appropriate when discussing the basic substance of both Mind & Matter. For example, at levels of low complexity, exchanges of information are merely what physicists call “energy”, which is “doing” without “knowing”. Only at higher levels of intricacy and entanglement do the conscious properties of Mind emerge from Material stuff.
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page12.html

Information -- Shannon vs Deacon : http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page26.html

Did Hegel say Spinoza wasn't a panpsychist?

My response isn't ""about building fortresses", just laying my cards on the table so we can dispense with bluffs and bluster and call everyone else's hand. It's facile, at best (like angelology), thus panpsychism's "popularity". So smoke 'em if you get 'em, peeps. — 180 Proof

I disagree with you - it is building fortresses; if we're talking cards: I call your bluff.

That said, I have no interest in tangling with you outside that. If the bluff works hereafter, I won't be tapping the bluffed on the shoulder to say 'consider this.'

Okay. But I'm not locking anyone out or fortifying against new, anticipated, arguments for the proposition. I'm just calling it out as an incoherent concept fallaciously arrived at. Like saying 'the atoms of strawberries taste like strawberries'. :nerd: Feel free is dispel the analogy and correct my criticisms. My "fortress", csal, is the wide open wild spaces of where sound inferences roam free ... like apex predators. :smirk:

Acosmism excludes, or is inconsistent with, panpsychism. Hegel himself, perhaps, can be construed as a panpsychist.

Acosmism excludes, or is inconsistent with, panpsychism. — 180 Proof

Maybe it's inconsistent with some definitions of panpsychism. Acosmism is along the lines of Neoplatonism. The realm of the Absolute's emanations is one of degradation and partial truths, but all Mind is of this realm. We and everything we know is here, so an AP philosopher would say we cant deny it's existence. The mystic isn't really disagreeing if she calls it the domain of the Lord of Illusion. It's a different sense of "exists".

Interesting non sequitur, but we're discussing Spinozism and its specific uses (senses) of terms. E.g. Spinoza explicitly states (re: Ethics, section 1: On God) that substance - his conception - is neither 'conscious' nor 'volitional', and that substance alone is real (i.e. not an effect of any other cause/s, etc). Not remotely "neoplatonist".

So recall that the distinction between strong and weak emergence is in assessments of truths. Read the essay. — frank

Okay, didn't see anything contrary in there. That's all basically what I thought about strong and weak emergence already.

The point stands that if there is anything not deducible from current theories of physics, then that means that we need to modify our theories of physics to be such that those things are now deducible from them, and in the end, nothing will be non-deducible from physics. So nothing is fundamentally strongly emergent, unless you take "the physical" to be only exactly what current theories of physics say it is; I'm not the one taking physics to be finalized already, I'm the one expecting it to be modified as necessary until it accurately accounts for everything.

In any case, Chalmer's position seems to be not dissimilar to mine, which is merely that having a first-person experience is not something that can be built up out of third-person facts; the third-person isn't "below" the first-person. But it doesn't then follow that if you put together the right third-person facts in the right way, then suddenly a wholly new kind of thing that was not at all present in the stuff you built that out of appears on top of the thing you've built.

If anything it suggests the exact opposite: that if a brain has a first-person experience, and modifying the brain modifies that first-person experience, then disassembling the brain into its constituent parts should disassemble the experience into its constituent parts, such that even the most elementary stuff in the universe has a kind of primordial "consciousness", in this sense that we should by now realize is not the sense ordinarily meant by the word, if even lone protons have it. In other words, panpsychism, at least about phenomenal consciousness, which is not consciousness as we ordinarily mean it.

And then both the behavior of our brains as physical systems observable in the third person, and the first-person experience those brains have when doing that behavior -- which together are the thing we ordinarily mean by "consciousness" -- can weakly emerge in unison (because they're actually two faces of the exact same function) as we rebuild those brains out of atoms again. But nowhere in that process of building brains out of atoms did a metaphysically new thing start happening that was not in principle deducible from the atoms themselves, i.e. strongly emerge.

Spinoza explicitly states (re: Ethics, section 1: On God) that substance - his conception - is neither 'conscious' nor 'volitional', and that substance alone is real (i.e. not an effect of any other cause/s, etc). Not remotely "neoplatonist". — 180 Proof

The Absolute is neither conscious nor volitional, and its supposed to be the higher truth, the only thing that doesn't exist relatively. Definitely Neoplatonic.

So nothing is fundamentally strongly emergent, — Pfhorrest

Ok. So?

Well, then, your "neoplatonist" interpretation of Spinozism rules-out Spinoza as a "panpsychist". :up:

No, it doesn't. I'm a little surprised that you dont see why not. But the SEP agrees with me. :cool:

Academic fashion is a mean crutch. But okay. :sweat: