The Case For Panpsychism

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d63
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by d63 »

"On a commonsense conception, colors are resolutely non-mental properties that reside on the surfaces and also permeate the hidden insides of physical objects – like red apples with white interiors. Although the colors of objects are perceivable by minds, common sense does not make it a condition of an object’s being colored that someone be currently experiencing it, nor that anyone ever will. Colours, on this view, do not depend on conscious awareness, or mentality of any sort. Quite the contrary: if we inquire further into the nature of colors under the commonsense conception, we are most likely to equate them with objectively measurable physical properties – wavelengths, for example. Conceived of in this way, colors exist whether anyone is looking or not. Your favorite shirt is no less loud for being in the wardrobe.

On a second conception, which we might call more philosophically informed (or misinformed, depending on your perspective – for there are philosophers who vigorously defend the commonsense conception), colors are paradigmatically mental properties. After all, we dream, and can hallucinate, colors just like those we see. People with Charles Bonnet Syndrome experience especially vivid color hallucinations. For homemade color hallucinations rub your eyelids for ten seconds, or stare at a bright light for half a minute and look around. When dreaming of an apple, no light rays are hitting your retinas, nor are you in sight of a real apple. So whatever is red and white about a dream apple is only within your mind. Colors under this second conception do require the touch of consciousness. This would mean that there can be no such thing as an unexperienced color; colors exist only when some mind’s eye sees them. And what goes for the colors of sleep is also true of the colors we experience when awake: right now the colours you are seeing are in your mind (so waves of light are not intrinsically colored, since light waves evidently exist when no-one sees them). We could label this the ‘Cartesian’ conception of colors, since René Descartes is usually blamed for this line of thought, although (like every other Western philosopher) he’s only following Plato, who forcefully chipped away at the objectivity of colors." -from Sam Coleman's article Neutral Monism: A Saner Solution to the Mind/Body Problem

This particular quote is problematic for me in that it undermines a point I was out to make in support of Phillip Goff's argument for Panpsychism. Still, I believe I have reason for going on as planned. Granted, it may well be that colors are "out there". But we are talking about light waves that bounce off of surfaces that then register in the eyes: data fully dependent on the sensors involved. For instance, you have to account for how these colors register to organisms that are colorblind or how colors become brighter when on psychedelics. "Cartoonsville" as we called it back in the 70's.

But more important here is how sound was left out of the issue. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound as much as it makes soundwaves. Sound, unlike (possibly (color, clearly requires something to register it. This is scientifically backed. And we have to consider the possibility that color (or rather light (suffers a similar limitation.

That said, I would ask the reader to consider something. We can easily imagine a universe of form without a perceiving thing to register it. We can easily imagine primary qualities doing so. But it gets a little more precarious when you consider secondary qualities such as color and sound. It gets harder to imagine them existing without something to register them. They simply make no sense without being perceived. And here we arrive at a legitimate argument for the anthropic principle: the notion that the universe exists primarily for purpose of being perceived. And once we accept this, it isn't a far reach to trace this back to the possibility that consciousness (at some level or other (is a fundamental element of the universe: panpsychism. We, as perceiving things, may well be what existence created in order to look back at itself.
Dubious
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

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PauloL wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:11 pm
[...] nur geteilt, es sind zwei Räume, aber so daß er gegen diese Negation ganz gleichgültig, und in ihr der Tat ist selbst gleich bliebt, und seine Negation ein Nichts ist.
Maybe a few folks here have Hegel Gesammelte Werke in their shelves by any chance and might help a lot completing original version.
Thank you for the reply. It's comprehensibility requires the whole thought to give it a degree of comprehension. Unfortunately Hegel wasn't even close to Schopenhauer or Nietzsche in expressing himself which would have made his abstractions easier to understand.
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PauloL
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

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d63 wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 6:42 pm
Imagine a nonliving universe with a planet concentrating some kind of gas.

Then an asteroid hits the planet and a huge bang ensues.

The asteroid hitting, a hole created, vibrations in gaseous molecules, all that happening.

Why do you need anything to witness that?
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PauloL
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by PauloL »

Dubious wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 8:47 pm
PauloL wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:11 pm
[...] nur geteilt, es sind zwei Räume, aber so daß er gegen diese Negation ganz gleichgültig, und in ihr der Tat ist selbst gleich bliebt, und seine Negation ein Nichts ist.
Maybe a few folks here have Hegel Gesammelte Werke in their shelves by any chance and might help a lot completing original version.
Thank you for the reply. It's comprehensibility requires the whole thought to give it a degree of comprehension. Unfortunately Hegel wasn't even close to Schopenhauer or Nietzsche in expressing himself which would have made his abstractions easier to understand.
Bitte. At least for this part the translation is enough accurate, except for some commas. Also, I think "gegen" translates as before (in front of) or against, but they translated it together with "diese" as "in this". "Er" was translated as "the space", which might be controversial, as "er" translates as "it". It's the reader, not the translator, who must disclose what that "it" is meant to be, but perhaps it's space indeed.
d63
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by d63 »

PauloL wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:05 pm
d63 wrote: Sun Sep 03, 2017 6:42 pm
Imagine a nonliving universe with a planet concentrating some kind of gas.

Then an asteroid hits the planet and a huge bang ensues.

The asteroid hitting, a hole created, vibrations in gaseous molecules, all that happening.

Why do you need anything to witness that?
First of all, Paulol, there wouldn't be any bang. All there would be is very intense waves of air. It is only a bang if there is something to record it. And I get that sound waves and light could have just coincidentally existed and that ears and eyes developed coincidentally to exploit. But these secondary qualities seem a little too coincidental as compared to the primary quality of form. I'm not talking about proof positive here. I am simply pointing out what is suggested.
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PauloL
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by PauloL »

d63 wrote: Fri Sep 08, 2017 4:38 pm
That's quite a semantic question indeed. I concede that you can call it intense waves of air instead of bang.

I agree on the rest.

Philosophically speaking, nothing exists without an observer. This is the very concept of existence.
d63
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by d63 »

PauloL wrote: Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:04 pm

That's quite a semantic question indeed. I concede that you can call it intense waves of air instead of bang.

I agree on the rest.

Philosophically speaking, nothing exists without an observer. This is the very concept of existence.
Now that you mention it, semantics would seem deeply entangled in the issue. But then I am making a primarily intuitive observation. The best I can say is that it SEEMS to be the case or feels that way.
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PauloL
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by PauloL »

d63 wrote: Sat Sep 09, 2017 4:08 pm
That's more clear now.

The observer question is quite pertinent indeed. If we assume nothing exists without an observer, then Universe didn't exist before the first Homo sapiens showed up, and this might look really paradoxical.
surreptitious57
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by surreptitious57 »

Paul wrote:
Philosophically speaking nothing exists without an observer
There is a difference between something existing which would not require an observer and proof of something existing which would require one
But strictly speaking what would be required would be evidence instead of an observer although one would still be required to see any evidence
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PauloL
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by PauloL »

The question of the observer is something unsettled as yet.

And we even have empirical evidence for that, perhaps, with the two-slit experiments by Young.

However light behaves depends on whether there's an observer or not.

Paradoxically, light can even change its behavior backwards if necessary.

Not so hard to understand this part if we consider that light is timeless and so time doesn't run for photons. So changing things backwards doesn't mean traveling in time for the photon. It has such meaning for us only.

The problem is that the two-slit can be reproduced with electrons, too, and these don't travel at light speed.

No doubt, consciousness is the hardest problem ever faced by science.
Viveka
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by Viveka »

I think that the case for panpsychism can be made, but it will be by putting oneself into the shoes of the entity that has such consciousness. I would say that all of the virtues exist as expressions of themselves in consciousness. For instance, mass might give the experience of 'equality' as well as giving the physical property of 'conservation.' For instance, any unit with mass must be conserved in mass and the rest of its dimensions. Equality is the experience of such. For instance, say a billiard ball hits another billiard ball. The mass of the billiard ball causes its momentum to be conserved, thus causing the rebound with the next billiard ball with the same momentum. The experience of such is 'equality' or, better so, 'equanimity,' which is the function of mass. Mass itself is what causes other dimensions within units to be conserved. Then, intermix the dimensions of length and time with mass, and you get momentum, which, properly speaking, is a time of finitude with a length of cyclicality conserved by mass. Thus, the experience of time per length multiplied by mass would be the conservation of cycles of time with an inclusion of such into length's cycle. This experience could be something similar to experiencing day and then night while experiencing the planet's circumference through mathematical calculations of the length of day and night, but not 'knowing' through these mathematical calculations, but rather 'experiencing' that very thing through such.
Dalek Prime
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by Dalek Prime »

Philosophy Now wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:35 pm Philip Goff thinks that everything has some degree of consciousness.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Th ... anpsychism
Great. I don't.
Dubious
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by Dubious »

Dalek Prime wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:00 pm
Philosophy Now wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:35 pm Philip Goff thinks that everything has some degree of consciousness.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Th ... anpsychism
Great. I don't.
Neither do I. I don't need my tail wagging when what it's attached to has come and gone!
Dalek Prime
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dubious wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:20 pm
Dalek Prime wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:00 pm
Philosophy Now wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:35 pm Philip Goff thinks that everything has some degree of consciousness.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Th ... anpsychism
Great. I don't.
Neither do I. I don't need my tail wagging when what it's attached to has come and gone!
Technically, that's called a fart. ;)
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: The Case For Panpsychism

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

There is no case for this.
A theory that puts Bob Evenson on a level playing field with a rock..... oh wait a minute!

Start again.....

There is no case for this.
A theory that puts a geologist on a level playing field with the rock he examines is absurd.
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