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Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#41

Post by leroy_masochist »

> There is a profound difficulty at the heart of the science of consciousness: consciousness is unobservable. You can’t look inside an electron to see whether or not it is conscious. But nor can you look inside someone’s head and see their feelings and experiences. We know that consciousness exists not from observation and experiment but by being conscious.

But can't we measure brain waves with CAT scans? Isn't there research going on now into observing brain patterns and actually figuring out what the subject is thinking about in real time?

Perhaps this lines up another distinction between the thinking mind and actual consciousness.....but I'm not really convinced by the argument that consciousness is an unobservable black box.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#42

Post by odyssey7 »

Is the progression toward the heat death of the universe a result of innumerable suffering particles steering themselves in ways that minimize their pain? Should we as humans accelerate the heat death of the universe to end subatomic suffering?

Or is gravity their preferred route? Being together. Maybe the answer is funneling all of the universe into black holes.

Diamonds are very stable. Does this mean their particles are very happy? Is converting your loved one's remains into diamonds the greatest thing you can do for them, or is this reasoning flawed and is the eternal stasis a bad thing?

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#43

Post by bitL »

jjmorrison wrote: post #21

Why so much dislike for this? It's a theory that pushes on some of the foundational assumptions we make. Maybe it resonates and maybe not. But just being open to a new set of ideas means we can maybe learn something new and interesting. Or not and that's fine too. People seem angry that someone else would talk about an idea they don't currently agree with.

Because there are a lot of scientific wackos that are trying to push it to mainstream without any proof, see e.g. PhDs in congnitive neuroscience with focus on art and whole conferences organized around such ideas. It looks like some New Age cult inside science. Whether it's true or not, there is no methodology how to measure it, putting it outside scientific domain. It's on the level of simulation hypothesis. The rationale is that consciousness as a quality exists and is present in universe, so there must be some mechanisms for consciousness to emerge - if it is another layer or whatever on top of universe we have no clue. But most proponents of the theory sound like cultists.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#44

Post by bsenftner »

ajuc wrote: post #24
jjmorrison wrote: post #21

Why so much dislike for this? It's a theory that pushes on some of the foundational assumptions we make. Maybe it resonates and maybe not. But just being open to a new set of ideas means we can maybe learn something new and interesting. Or not and that's fine too. People seem angry that someone else would talk about an idea they don't currently agree with.

It uses handwavy definitions, it's untestable and makes a lot of assumptions without providing any new predictions.

It is an attempt to extend the hard sciences into a non-quantitative domain. Consider it early work that might become something like quantum mechanics, but being early, the terms and definitions are still finding their foundations. This is the point where great careers are made, if you're brave enough to dive into the unknown and use your mind for solving truly unknown questions.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#45

Post by platz »

ajuc wrote: post #24
jjmorrison wrote: post #21

Why so much dislike for this? It's a theory that pushes on some of the foundational assumptions we make. Maybe it resonates and maybe not. But just being open to a new set of ideas means we can maybe learn something new and interesting. Or not and that's fine too. People seem angry that someone else would talk about an idea they don't currently agree with.

It uses handwavy definitions, it's untestable and makes a lot of assumptions without providing any new predictions.

Nothing about the topic consciousness is fundamentally testable. Which is why it's often a topic for philosophy rather than science.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#46

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

jjmorrison wrote: post #21

Why so much dislike for this? It's a theory that pushes on some of the foundational assumptions we make. Maybe it resonates and maybe not. But just being open to a new set of ideas means we can maybe learn something new and interesting. Or not and that's fine too. People seem angry that someone else would talk about an idea they don't currently agree with.

When we talk about consciousness, as in the subjective experience of being, that's ultimately a proxy for "which things can we do really awful stuff to". We reason that for things that are not conscious there is no suffering (since it can't be experienced) and therefore we are free to exploit those things in any way we wish. Lately the trend has been to argue that AI is not, that even though we can create algorithms complicated enough to do the kinds of analysis our own minds do (and in a not-entirely-dissimilar way), they are "just algorithms" and have no experience of suffering for us to concern ourselves with. This is convenient for us, because it allows us to exploit such things without being bothered by ethical reasoning. This is also why many will argue that animals are not conscious, and some will even argue that many humans are not [0].

[0] Which is a perfectly rational statement if you operate from a basis of empiricism. There is no way to measure the consciousness (again, the experience of being) of something, meaning you can only observe your own and everyone else, though similar to you, may as well be an automaton.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#48

Post by [deleted] »

platz wrote: post #45
ajuc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses handwavy definitions, it's untestable and makes a lot of assumptions without providing any new predictions.

Nothing about the topic consciousness is fundamentally testable. Which is why it's often a topic for philosophy rather than science.

[deleted]

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#49

Post by robbrown451 »

mapcars wrote: post #33
skywhopper wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the meaning of that idiom entirely. They don’t want to hear “because it’s made of blue stuff” because it’s wrong and useless, not because it is distasteful.

I don't think I missed anything, if you already decided what is wrong - this is not a honest search - you just want to find something which satisfies your views.

I think he/she wants something that isn't circular and therefore meaningless.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#50

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #23
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #3

Even 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…

Consider the following: your consciousness, that experience you have of being, the one that --in the minds of many-- separates you from a computer programmed to behave like you, cannot exist under your model because it cannot be tested for. Consider also that this statement is ridiculous, because you clearly do have an experience of being. What does this tell us? Empiricism and the scientific method are a philosophy…

I can generally agree that something like consciousness exists, because I seem to be experiencing it. The test of that fact is ongoing, as I type these words, and it continues to be true. I suspect, based on the fact that other people act like me and all also claim to be conscious, that they are having internal experiences similar to mine, although I can't know for sure.

So I don't agree that consciousness in general can't be tested for. We can test our own consciousness, and we can use induction to guess that at least other humans are experiencing something similar.

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