So by "we" do you mean panpsychists? — Daemon

No, I am not a panpsychist or a cosmopsychist but I have a tiny eyebrow twitch towards them.

The idea that the totality of all the individual consciousnesses which exist in the Universe at some time in the very very distant future COULD network/collect/unite/merge/converge/coalesce into a single 'Universal conscience,' has a modicum of plausibility for me. The possibilities of transhumanism add a little more weight to the idea. If human brains could be placed in cybernetic bodies or/and if human conscience can eventually be 'downloaded' to a cloned body or into an electronic existence, then the idea of merging consciousnesses becomes more plausible.
This is no more than my own personal musings based on current sci-fi projections of current technologies, and although I 'give it room' in my head, It is in a space labeled meh! interesting but probably unlikely. Such ability to merge or join individual consciousnesses would have to be demonstrated to turn me panpsychist.

But the sharp and personal sense of the immediate is also involved in the modeling of the subpersonal, the pre-reflective, the unconscious and the automatic; in other words, the general that is placed as outside of the situated awareness of the personal is itself a product of that situated awareness. — Joshs

Good job that the particular and the general are a dichotomy and thus a system of mutual constraint then. So first and third person is the division we produce by remarking on the huge difference between being “ourself” as the invariant imposed on the flow of experience vs being “any such self”.

Reduction normally involves explaining one thing completely in terms of things other than it. — bert1

Let the dictionary be your friend: "[Reductionism is] the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation."

Stability of form and structure is an illusion. — Harry Hindu

So like I said. Stability is relative to instability. The dichotomy is the mutually constraining one, the mutually "othering" one, of stasis~flux, or being~becoming, or how ever else you might want to capture the essential idea.

If reductionism is faulty then how is it that we understand the things we have invented as products of smaller parts? — Harry Hindu

Reductionism to the holism of structuralism is different from reductionism to the reductionism of materialism - the fetishisation of Being. And the mechanical works as a combo of material and efficient cause because we humans supply the formal and final cause.

So the holism is there, if you look.

Energy and matter would be different substances and forms. — Harry Hindu

But what does modern physics now reduce these things to? I think you will find it is the maths of symmetry and symmetry breaking. The global Poincare group and the local gauge group.

Nature is reduced to mathematical structure by our physical laws. And the rest is all that is measurable within that scheme.

If something works, we ought to understand why that has become the outcome. Hence ontic structural realism as the recent metaphysical bandwagon,

Let the dictionary be your friend: "[Reductionism is] the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation." — apokrisis

I see, and that's what you're asserting of panpsychists, that panpsychists think consciousness is a complex phenomenon, fully explained in terms of fundamental constituents, which panpsychists assert are themselves also conscious. Is that right?

Again, let the dictionary be your friend: "[Panpsychism is] the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness." :roll:

What I think I mean, is that there is an objective truth that A=A, that things are what they are, and that would be true in any possible world that came into existence through random happenstance.

A=A, the law of identity, a thing is what it is, is an immutable truth. There are objective truths in this universe, in this reality.

I may have gotten lost there. The content of this thread is way over my head. I'm not really sure if I answered anything or contributed anything valuable to our exchange.

It's the ingredients of consciousness that is said to be fundamental. Someone here offered another perspective, that information is fundamental. I think information would be more accurate, or it least it reduces it a little more.

I'm hung up right now though, on this idea that there necessarily had to be something there (a pre-existing mind) that knew how to assemble this information into self awareness. Unless we posit that all of it somehow knew how to do it, as though each piece is a self existent fractal of the whole.

I see, and that's what you're asserting of panpsychists, that panpsychists think consciousness is a complex phenomenon, fully explained in terms of fundamental constituents, which panpsychists assert are themselves also conscious. Is that right? — bert1

@apokrisis It's a really simple question.

So how are you defining reductionism and panpsychism in this conversation?

The simple answer is that you don't seem to understand the terms in the usual way.

I don't know! You introduced the term and said panpsychism was reductionist. I'm just trying to understand what you mean!

There's lots of different conceptions of reduction - look at the Stanford article. My usual casual understanding of it is that one thing (the reduced thing) is fully explained in terms of other things (the things it is reduced to). But I'm not an expert on the concept. And I wasn't sure what you meant by it. So that's why I asked, it's odd to think of panpsychism as a reductionist theory, because it is precisely difficulties reducing consciousness to processes, functions, information, whatever, which motivates some panpsychists.

Panpsychism covers a number of views. What most of them have in common is perhaps that consciousness is present in every system. It's problematic trying to get a single definition to cover the variety of views accurately. Are you asking what my particular panpsychist view is?

Anyway, this:

The simple answer is that you don't seem to understand the terms in the usual way. — apokrisis

..is not an answer to this:

I see, and that's what you're asserting of panpsychists, that panpsychists think consciousness is a complex phenomenon, fully explained in terms of fundamental constituents, which panpsychists assert are themselves also conscious. Is that right? — bert1

I'm trying to understand what you're saying. Please will you help? Did I get it right?

You introduced the term and said panpsychism was reductionist. I'm just trying to understand what you mean! — bert1

I gave you the dictionary definitions. They fit what I was saying. If you think different, show me how.

...it's odd to think of panpsychism as a reductionist theory, because it is precisely difficulties reducing consciousness to processes, functions, information, whatever, which motivates some panpsychists. — bert1

Yeah. So they reduce it to a property of matter ... which may be a fundamentally incoherent metaphysics, but there you go.

Panpsychism covers a number of views. What most of them have in common is perhaps that consciousness is present in every system. — bert1

Really? They all claim consciousness is a universal property of systems, not a universal property of matter?

Was this the version of panpsychism that I was responding to in the OP? Or the more usual dictionary definition?

Are you asking what my particular panpsychist view is? — bert1

Are you answering any time soon?

I'm hung up right now though, on this idea that there necessarily had to be something there (a pre-existing mind) that knew how to assemble this information into self awareness. Unless we posit that all of it somehow knew how to do it, as though each piece is a self existent fractal of the whole. — Watchmaker

According to Aristotelian principles, forms are a manifestation of mind. The forms of things can't be explained in terms of the activities of matter alone, without being 'informed' (and there's the root of 'information'). Aristotle himself was not overtly theist in the later sense - that came with the later assimilation of Greek philosophy into Christian theology in the likes of Aquinas. But the idea of a divine intellect or 'demiurgos' was part of the fabric of Greek philosophical thought.

The problem is that this runs up against the naturalist taboo against anything that sounds theistic - a divine intelligence or intellect or whatever, which is more or less verboten in secular philosophical discourse. It sounds very like intelligent design. (See The Argument from Biological Information.) And that implicit prohibition, I think, conditions a great deal of what is said about this question, even if not articulated explicitly.

Panpsychism attempts to get around this by making the mind (or 'consciousness') an attribute of simple material particulars (presumably atoms or their constituents) - as if it's something that is there all along, like velocity, mass, and the other primary qualities of objects. They interpret the idea of 'consciousness everywhere' in a literal sense - literally distributed throughout the Universe in latent form, existing in a very rudimentary manner even in atoms themselves.

So that kind of makes panpsychism sound naturalistic - but at the cost of introducing an attribute or quality for which critics will say there can't be any direct evidence.

That's what I see as the state of play.

Apo, you are behaving very oddly.

Are you answering any time soon? — apokrisis

I didn't even know you'd asked me. You still haven't, but I presume you intended to. I'll answer.

My own view is that consciousness is a property of reality-as-continuum, perhaps space, or the quantum field. I do not think there is any difference in kind between the consciousness of a human being, a snail, a molecule, an Apokrisis, an atom, or the fields they are behaviours of. All are equally conscious, I do not think consciousness admits of degree. I think any arbitrarily defined object is also conscious.

So now I'll ask my question for the third time:

I see, and that's what you're asserting of panpsychists, that panpsychists think consciousness is a complex phenomenon, fully explained in terms of fundamental constituents, which panpsychists assert are themselves also conscious. Is that right? — bert1

Really? They all claim consciousness is a universal property of systems, not a universal property of matter? — apokrisis

I think so, but it depends what 'matter' means, doesn't it? I tend to think of 'matter' as persistent behaviours of substance. That's what some panpsychists assert as the primary bearers of consciousness (e.g. the IIT theory). Other panpsychists go a step further and assert consciousness as a property of substance. That would include me. If we use 'matter' instead to refer to substance (as many people do), then I'm one to assert that consciousness is a property of matter. The dictionary definition of panpsychism you found is roughly OK, but as you would expect in philosophy, there are distinctions that are glossed over in a simple one-sentence definition.

Was this the version of panpsychism that I was responding to in the OP? — apokrisis

I don't know.

As I understood the OP it was asking for clarification of what panpsychism is, rather than clearly stipulating a definition.

Or the more usual dictionary definition? — apokrisis

I don't know.

I gave you the dictionary definitions. They fit what I was saying. If you think different, show me how. — apokrisis

I'm just asking for clarification, that's all! I wasn't sure what you meant, and it sounded odd to me. The dictionary definitions you offered are not clear to me. I tried to put into my own words what I thought you were saying, and asked if I'd got it right! That's a nice thing to do isn't it? I don't understand why you are making this so difficult.

So that kind of makes panpsychism sound naturalistic - but at the cost of introducing an attribute or quality for which critics will say there can't be any direct evidence. — Wayfarer

I think that's quite a good summary.

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

That's what I think, yes. Not all panpsychists think that though. — bert1

I think the notion that apokrisis and I take issue with, in different ways, is the depiction of consciousness as a substance or property. What makes this problematic is that it is the tendency to reduce phenomena to physical substance that led to the hard problem to
begin with. If all you have is hammer , then everything looks like a nail, and if your only metaphysics is monistic naturalism, then everything looks like a substance.
But consciousness is neither an object, a substance or a property, but a relational activity.

But consciousness is neither an object, a substance or a property, but a relational activity

.

I have always understood, that the naturalist view, is that consciousness is an emergent property. You are saying that it's not a property, but a relational activity. I've never heard that.

I think the notion that apokrisis and I take issue with, in different ways, is the depiction of consciousness as a substance or property. What makes this problematic is that it is the tendency to reduce phenomena to physical substance that led to the hard problem to
begin with. If all you have is hammer , then everything looks like a nail, and if your only metaphysics is monistic naturalism, then everything looks like a substance.
But consciousness is neither an object, a substance or a property, but a relational activity. — Joshs

OK, thanks. I still don't really understand though, sorry. I'm OK with reducing phenomena to more basic concepts where we can. But I don't regard consciousness, nor extension, spatiality, as phenomena in need of explanation. They seem to be basic concepts that resist analysis, to me at least.

I'm interested in your view of consciousness as a relational activity if you'd like to say more about that.

But consciousness is neither an object, a substance or a property, but a relational activity. — Joshs

Right. And this gets us to the nub of the problem. Naturalistic explanations implicitly rely on what is objectively existent. What the panpsychist argument attempts to do is to depict 'consciouness' in naturalistic terms, as an object or the property of objects. But the problem with that is, 'consciousness' or 'mind' never appears to us as an object. It is what objects appear to, or for.

This, as @Joshs knows, was one of the main features of Husserl's critique of naturalism.

Husserl thinks that all traditional philosophy, including Descartes and Kant, had treated consciousness as something having a completely natural being, a mere part of nature, and a dependent or epiphenomenal part at that. Even Kant had misunderstood transcendental psychology as a psychology. Husserl regards naturalism both as the dominant theoretical outlook of his age and also as deeply embedded in our ordinary assumptions about the world surrounding us. In other words, our pre-theoretical engagement with the world has an inbuilt bias towards naive naturalism. This is fine in our ordinary practices in the world, but when naturalism is elevated into an allencompassing theoretical outlook, it actually becomes far removed from the natural attitude and in fact grossly distorts it. Husserl’s critique of naturalism is that it is a distorted conception of the fruits of scientific method which in itself is not inextricably wedded to a naturalist construal. — Dermot Moran, Routledge Intro to Phenomenology, p142

Whereas, he goes on to say

Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. — p144

But the point is, this is not 'a theory' or 'hypothesis' about 'the natural world' so much as a shift in perspective in understanding the nature of knowledge itself. This shift has to come from a kind of self-awareness of the nature of knowing and being - which is then further developed by the later phenomenological and existential philosophers, including Heidegger, Sartre, and others.

I have always understood, that the naturalist view, is that consciousness is an emergent property. — Watchmaker

Yes, I think you are exactly right. "Emergentism" is a much clearer and less ambiguous word than "physicalism" or "materialism" or even "naturalism", and better captures people's views. I know I'm not an emergentist. But I can't say for certain that I am not a physicalist, as I don't know what it means.

What the panpsychist argument attempts to do is to depict 'consciouness' in naturalistic terms, as an object or the property of objects. — Wayfarer

It can do, but it can also depict it as primarily a property of substance, and then, a fortiori, derivatively, of modifications of that substance as well.

Apo, you are behaving very oddly. — bert1

No. You just continue to badger me without addressing the inconsistencies of your own position.

It seems according to you, panpsychists don't mean to reduce consciousness to being another ultimately simple property of matter, like presumably mass and charge.

And you say that panpsychists also can't see how consciousness could reduce to processes, functions, or information.

Yet at the same time, you say panpsychists generally believe consciousness can be reduced to a quality present in every system.

Then your confusion about what you might want to concretely assert in this discussion now reaches its crescendo where you state that your personal reduction would be to "a property of reality-as-continuum, perhaps space, or the quantum field."

And somehow "a snail, a molecule, an atom, a field" are all just essentially the same metaphysical category in your eyes - presumably a system (but a system that has no process or function) ... or a "reality-as-continuum" (with some wild hand-waving towards scientific concepts you don't understand)?

And you say you want clarification from me.... :lol: :rofl: :lol:

No. You just continue to badger me without addressing the inconsistencies of your own position. — apokrisis

I answered all your questions Apo! All I ask is that you answer one of mine. It's polite! Humour me.

But consciousness is neither an object, a substance or a property, but a relational activity. — Joshs

Yep. A biosemiotic modelling relation. :up:

Also, there has to be a reason why animal brains are the densest concentrations of structural and developmental complexity in the entire known universe. And why they can afford this in material and energetic terms.

It is not as if - even for the materialist - consciousness could be regarded as some kind of ultimate simple, when it is plainly the ultimate in terms of its material complexity.

I answered all your questions Apo! — bert1

You gave a bunch of different contradictory answers to the one question. That's slightly different.

It is not as if - even for the materialist - consciousness could be regarded as some kind of ultimate simple, when it is plainly the ultimate in terms of its material complexity. — apokrisis

Whilst nevertheless possessing the paradoxical attribute of subjective unity.

It seems according to you, panpsychists don't mean to reduce consciousness to being another ultimately simple property of matter, like presumably mass and charge. — apokrisis

Apo, I don't speak for all panpsychists. It's not a single position. There are many types, with different theoretical justifications.

For myself, I assert that consciousness is a fundamental property. But this is not a reduction, it is the exact opposite of a reduction. So we at least have a difference in usage here, or you don't understand the concept.

And you say that panpsychists also can't see how consciousness could reduce to processes, functions, or information. — apokrisis

Again, you lump all panpsychists together. Tononi, for example, is a panpsychist who does think that consciousness reduces to integrated information. I disagree with him. I can't see how consciousness can be explained in terms of other concepts. That's why I think it's likely fundamental, brute.

And somehow "a snail, a molecule, an atom, a field" are all just essentially the same metaphysical category in your eyes - presumably a system (a system that has no process or function) — apokrisis

No, these systems have processes and functions, of course. It's just that consciousness isn't one of them.

And you say you want clarification from me.... — apokrisis

I do! Most eagerly. I beg you. Please.

.

You gave a bunch of different contradictory answers to the one question. That's slightly different. — apokrisis

Well, I tried. Please would you? I mean, it's not hard. I asked it in such a way as you could say 'yes' or 'no'. So I tried to make it as easy as possible for you, as I did wonder if you have PDA.

These terms, these terms... can cause a serious block in thinking. Whereas it is true that "naturalism" as commonly used in contemporary philosophy is very similar to "scientism", it need not be the case.

One can be a panpsychist, a non-dualist, a pluralist - whatever and be a naturalist, a real one. A real naturalist would limit itself to saying that everything that is, is natural, with no hint of scienticism or "verificationism" or eliminating mental objects and so forth.

This rejects supernaturalism - that there are other forces in the world that aren't natural. This includes much woo, though by no means all.

If God existed or if panpsychism were true or even dualism - for who knows the answers to ultimate metaphysical questions? - then they would be natural, but not for that reason limited to a laboratory, nor less special or extraordinary.

The onus is for someone to explain WHY there need be something other than natural stuff in the universe and provide, if not evidence, then good reasons. Then I might be willing to throw naturalism to the wayside.

In either case, it's not a problem for panpsychism.

Whilst nevertheless possessing the paradoxical attribute of subjective unity. — Wayfarer

The clue would be that it is indeed a "paradoxical" claim unless the unity is the holistic one based on the classical unity of opposites.

In other words, consciousness can't be a simple. It is already complex.

We then need to cash this out as a systems-style causal account, and not a simple-minded monist account which doesn't even work for physics and its models of the "material realm", let alone the semiotic sciences of life and mind.

So from the cognitive neuroscience point of view, we would conventionally start by noting that "consciousness" is a unity in terms of being a balance of integration and differentiation. We need to see the world generally so as to be able to see it as being contrastingly particular. And this indeed is the phenomenological structure we discover on closer inspection - a division of "mindful awareness" into differentiating attention and integrating habit.

Something has to explain how I can both drive a car down busy streets, and yet do so completely automatically to the point I can't even remember the experience if I am too happy in my own day-dreaming.

So yep. Start with the unity, the holism, the global symmetry state. But that only sets the stage for the "other" of its breaking.

The breaking then become the various dichotomies which organise the brain so that it has the right kind of rational structure for making pragmatic sense of the world.

You have motor cortex vs sensory cortex, object-recognition paths vs spatial-relations paths, sub-cortical habits vs cortical attentional process, working memory vs long-term memory, focal left brain attentional style vs vigilant right brain attentional style, etc.

To analyse, the brain must dichotomise. This principle goes right down to the sensory receptors that are switches with two states - on or off.

Then that which is dichotomised must be unified by its synthesis. So the brain is organised by the fact that it divides just as much as it unites, differentiates just as hard as it integrates. The result is a coherence of incoherences, a generality of limitless contrasts.

It is easy to make is sound paradoxical ... until you see this is just what the unity of an anti-reductionist holism is. The irreducible complexity of a reciprocal relation where you go in two different directions at the same time in a way that then produces the third thing of their optimising balancing act.

I did wonder if you have PDA. — bert1

No. You have just proven yourself to be someone who can't follow arguments and gets very frustrated by that particular shortcoming.

Apo, you don't understand the concept of reduction as used in philosophy, and you do not acknowledge different types of panpsychism. What are you doing here?