Philosophy Now Forum

There seems to be a bit of a resurgence of interest recently in Panpsychism, the idea that everything has an aspect of psyche or mind to it. I've been reading Galen Strawson and others on the subject and would like to discuss the topic here. I have written a summary of some of the arguments in favor, too long to post on this forum, here: http://www.bmeacham.com/blog/?p=568. I invite your reasoned discussion.

I had not noticed any such 'resurgence'.

Whilst it seems evident that an idea such as 'mind' exists in some sense that we like to talk about, the evidence seems to point to a situation in which consciousness exists solely (pun not intended) in the presence of grey matter. There are good evidential reasons by which we can demonstrate the co-existence of psychic phenomena and brain matter. We can also witness a pan-cultural and confused assumption of an anthropomorphic interpretation throughout history which has very little to recommend it, which leads me to think that this is just the same old story.
But let us for a moment assume that the universe is, um, mindful.
Were this phenomenon not present in the universe, what difference would we experience?

We would not experience anything if experience were not present in the universe.

I belive that Chaz is saying that let us suppose that there is a universe that has in it an ability to have a mind that is separate from itself such that ..wait.. I had to read the essay again.

I think Chaz is taking the long way around to say that your psychological thesis is utterly metaphysical.

If the universe did not have a 'mind' component, what would be the difference?
Human experience would be exactly the same.
It is only that we think that there is a mind and a matter that there is such things, and if it is not, then, hey, here I am thinking the same way.
It may well be that mind is just our thinking that we have mind, but that in fact it is just matter doing what it does.

but hell, one man's metaphysics is a another man's True God, I mean, phychology. (excuse me; I burped) especially if you can get people to pay you for your influence.

Well......duh.

I did not ask that. I asked what would be the difference if panpsychism did not exist.
Personal experience is not the same as panpsychism.
You are making a generalist fallacy.
Your thread is not off to a good start.

Chaz: Whilst it seems evident that an idea such as 'mind' exists in some sense that we like to talk about, the evidence seems to point to a situation in which consciousness exists solely (pun not intended) in the presence of grey matter. There are good evidential reasons by which we can demonstrate the co-existence of psychic phenomena and brain matter. We can also witness a pan-cultural and confused assumption of an anthropomorphic interpretation throughout history which has very little to recommend it, which leads me to think that this is just the same old story.
But let us for a moment assume that the universe is, um, mindful.
Were this phenomenon not present in the universe, what difference would we experience?


MGL:

1) the correlation between brain states and conscious experience does not explain where the sensations of redness, pain etc come from.

2) The thesis of pansychism suggests that if mindstuff were not present then there would be no experience. We would just be zombies without consciousness.

3) Pan-psychism does not suggest that everything has a mind, just that everything has properties that are the constituents ( ie mindstuff ) of the phenomenal attributes of a conscious mind.

4) A conscious experience could be presumably equivalent to some state of energy in the brain, a state that is determined ( for the sake of argument ) by neuronal activity. Now this neuronal activity may explain our BEHAVIOUR, but it is far from clear how it explains the phenomenal experience. Either it somehow produces it, or the raw phenomenal components - redness etcs - are already part of the energy and particles that the mental state is reducable to. If it produces the phenomena you need some explanation of how this is possible. I personally cant't see how purely spatio-temporal descriptions could explain the qualitative phenomal properties. The simplest explanation is that these phenomenal properties are already present in the physical consituents of the experience. If that is the case, then everything has some kind of proto-mental attribute, but it is only in complex objects such as the brain that this mindstuff is realised into a mind.

i agree, not a good start.
psychology proposes to be able to determine psychic truths through apparent behavior of individuals. Right off it is relying upon metaphysical presumptions. so maybe for those who agree with the premise of psychology, he got off to a grrrrrrreat start -- with frosted flakes.

Mind - area of overlap - matter.

essential categories.

Yes, it is a metaphysical thesis. It is a claim about the ultimate nature of reality, not about anybody's psychology.
If we are thinking, then we have mind. That's what thinking is. I do not understand this comment at all.

MGL is definitely on to the issue, which is how mind and body are related.

Right. This is the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness. If everything is basically just inert matter, where does experience come from?
That's close. (I'm not at all sure the notion of such zombies makes any sense.) Since we are obviously not without consciousness, then mindstuff is present. The question is whether mindstuff is present only in animals with brains or whether it is present all the way down.
Right again. Panpsychism does not claim that rocks have mind or are conscious. It claims that the elemental constituents of which rocks are composed do have an experiential aspect as well as a physical aspect. In non-living things the elemental constituents in their experiential aspect do not combine to form a higher-level consciousness. In living beings they do, and the more complex the living being is physically, the more complex and rich is that living being's experience of its world.
That is the argument in a nutshell.

Look at it this way. It is a plain fact that each of us is conscious and has experience of his or her world. And it is a plain fact that each of us is physical, observable by others. Why would it seem metaphysically plausible that some pieces of reality lack one or the other of these attributes?

Metaphysics no longer has any credibility on the 'ultimate nature of reality' thesis. Metaphysics and metaphysical claims are basically a discredited avenue of philosophy.

The fact that you cannot answer my questions, leads me to the conclusion that Panpsychism is a solution looking for a problem that does not exist. It has no relevance and its absence from our thinking does not alter or explains anyting we don't already know about the universe. It is not demonstrable nor is it evident.

So pantheism - oops, I mean panpsycim- suggests that there is some aspect of 'rockness' that exists of the rock in itself and also in the mind as 'rock-mindstuff' ?

MGL: the correlation between brain states and conscious experience does not explain where the sensations of redness, pain etc come from.

Chaz: THe more we learn the more it explains; the more it demonstrates that the existence of grey matter and nerves is responsible for whatever it is we call consciousness. Extending it to rocks and dog shit add nothing to the explanation.

MGL: All you demonstrate here is that you fail to understand the hard problem of consciousness. How on earth could grey matter and nerves be responsible for consciousness if they don't already have the properties - the qualia of redness etc - that consciousness is constructed from?


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Chaz: Metaphysics and metaphysical claims are basically a discredited avenue of philosophy....

MGL: Determinism is a metaphysical claim but you seem to adopt it without any qualms. If you dig deep enough into an interpretation of any scientific theory, it will rely on some metaphyiscal assumptions.


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Chaz: What you are trying to say is that a rock could feel, if only it had nerves and a brain. What Even if this were true - what meaning or value would such an idea have.


MGL: the idea explains the hard problem of consciousness. If you reject pan-psychism, you presumbaly accept the idea that the brain somehow produces the qualia of colours and sounds. If that is the case can you tell me how it does so? How could conscious sensations emerge from neuronal activity?


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Chaz: And tell me why computers have not already become self aware? Surely if all this "MINDSTUFF: exists in all matter then any system that has inputs , outputs and a processing capacity would be automatically self aware. As computers are not then this rather falsifies panpsychism.

MGL:

1) as I hope you agree the universe is reducable to particles of matter and\or states of energy.
2) panpsychism suggests every particle will have some kind of existence akin to a very primitive mental state, but not a complete conscious mind.
3) energy and particles combine and interact in many different ways.
4) A certain complex state or process of particle\energy combination would have the effect of merging the previously separate proto-mental states into a single unified mental state - what we would understand to be a conscuous mind.
5) The reason why computers would not have a unified conscious state and why brains do, is presumably because of the way the underlying particles and energy are combining and interacting.

I personally don't like the terms pan-psychism or mindstuff as it has the effect of distracting some people from the actual argument and encouraging ridicule as a poor substitute for criticism.