This is bad philosophy masked in scientific jargon.
Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
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Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#12I am more interested in the nature of consciousness than its location . . . not sure where this idea could lead.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#13I think non-duality / advaita makes much more sense than panpsychism, as it requires less assumptions while remaining compatible with our experience. Panpsychism seems like a bandaid to solve the hard problem of consciousness, which non-duality does not suffer from.
> Panpsychism seems like a bandaid to solve the hard problem of consciousness It doesn't even do that, it just pushes it down the stack. If I ask, why is the sky blue, I don't want to hear "Because it's made of blue stuff." Not only is it wrong, it doesn't have any explanatory power at all. Ultimately if you want to understand why something has a certain property, you want to know how it arises from the emergent beha…
>If I ask, why is the sky blue, I don't want to hear "Because it's made of blue stuff."
Well, you are not going far if you hear only what you want to hear. PS sky is blue because you perceive it as blue.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#14Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
Just because the observable world is testable doesn't mean that subjectivity doesn't hold any value.
Yeah, and I never claimed that. There's plenty of value in the subjective. For example, I liked this movie more than that one. My tastes are subjective, and yet I find value in them.
But this philosopher's claim isn't subjective. It's not "hey I think it would be cool if all matter were conscious." It's a pseudo-factual claim about consciousness. It's not subjective at all. It's just neither wrong nor right. It would be like me claiming that there exists a being called "god" who has never and will never interact with this universe in any way. You can't predict anything based on this pseudo-factual claim, which means (IMO) it has no real truth value. On the other hand, it's definitely not a "subjective" viewpoint as most people conceive of subjectivity.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#15Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
> that means it can't affect anything
it can still affect how we interact with the world
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#16Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
How do you define "practical use?"
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#17Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
> There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise.
This is a very materialistic view of the world. By this measure we shouldn’t talk about religious ideas or discuss the (non-monetary) value of art. I have great respect for science, but I think there are things worth discussing that fall outside of science.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#18Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
I believe there can be better and worse explanation, even if they predict the same. I think interpretations of quantum mechanics are of this kind.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#19Even the theory's advocate acknowledges in this interview that it's untestable. There is no way to observe that the world would behave differently whether or not the theory is true. If that's so, I can't think what point there is discussing it, except as a mental exercise. If you can't test a theory, that means it can't affect anything. I.e. it has no practical use, except as a form of entertainment. I would almost a…
I think philosophy has to find gaps in what science can do in order to justify its existence. Some things are untestable -- what are we supposed to do with those things? There are qualitative and normative problems that science can't help us with.
I generally agree with you though -- we'd be better off if we just focused more on science, and describing things accurately, instead of just coming up with wild ass ideas. But it still is good to acknowledge and be aware of known limitations with that approach.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#20Mu. The definition provided ("consciousness is experience") explains nothing, you cannot experimentally decide if atoms experience anything, the fact that they do or don't doesn't change any prediction for how they behave over time. It's meaningless, like wondering if magic exists but is actively hiding from us. Paranoia is that way. > Despite great progress in our scientific understanding of the brain, we still don’…
not to mention the simplest one celled animals do exhibit thinking problem solving functions despite not having neurons