> That’s what panpsychists believe.
Why is it we can't discuss ideas without labeling someone as a -ist of some kind?
Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
231–240 of 356 posts
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#232Why 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.
Peronally, my response is not anything more hostile than a tendency for my eyes to roll -- and the reason for that comes from how this argument seems to be using the flexibility of language to avoid the issues. There is a problem that precedes this essay: 'consciousness' nominally has a meaning of merely being aware of, and responding to, the environment, but this is not the self-aware consciousness that is currently…
> nominally has a meaning of merely being aware of, and responding to, the environment, but this is not the self-aware consciousness that is currently unexplained
By this do you mean we've explained how "what is it like to be a bat?" works? (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F)
If so, can you point me toward that explanation?
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consciousness may be that thing that shows the limits of scientific experimentation.
Just like religious experience, then. Or any other metaphysical property, for that matter.
I would argue that religious experience is really an exploration into consciousness framed imperfectly in religious terms.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing about the topic consciousness is fundamentally testable. Which is why it's often a topic for philosophy rather than science.
Actually, we all have consciousness, and can therefore experiment. A lot of experiments have been done about consciousness through meditation, psychedelics, etc.
How do you know that I am conscious?
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#235Read Bernardo Kastrup's, a Dutch computer scientist and philosopher, criticism on panpsychism: " https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html https://iai.tv/articles/will-we-ever-understand-consciousnes... https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/emtud2/bernardo... He proposes an alternative answer for the mind-body problem; idealism instead of materialism https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html
For some reason I enjoy trying to share intuitions for idealism. Let me try to do so here. First, notice that it's impossible to prove which metaphysics (materialism, idealism, solipsism, Last Thursdayism, simulationism...) is correct. Next, notice that the situation is even worse: you can't even assign probabilities to those possibilities without making assumptions about whatever is "outside" reality -- which are by…
Very nice, your mouse pointer analogy is really good!
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#236I'm trying to be open-minded and make sense of the position. The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform? The second leap is saying science only tells us what matter does and not "the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of its…
> If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform?
For me, some of the "making sense" about a position like this is in terms of such dichotomies. The important part is that this description applies equally to all members of the continuum, e.g., "if 'I' like a song, am 'I' experiencing happiness or is 'my' electrochemical clump of 'me' just reacting?"
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#237Panpsychism is incredibly silly. It's just obfuscated dualism. It literally doesn't explain anything , and it's obviously wrong for the simple reason that it gives no way to explain why humans act on their conscious experience and have it modelled internally as a conscious experience. The brain's use of electrical pulses or DNA doesn't result in an innate internal model of electricity or DNA. Similarly, if a proton h…
> for the simple reason that it gives no way to explain why humans act on their conscious experience and have it modelled internally as a conscious experience.
The theory doesn't purport to explain internal models nor awareness in any sense that we're used to it. That is a separate question. If you are looking for those answers, they will be found in how the machination of "conscious" behavior accumulates sufficient complexity to look like directed actions from the outside.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#238I'm trying to be open-minded and make sense of the position. The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform? The second leap is saying science only tells us what matter does and not "the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of its…
> If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform? For me, some of the "making sense" about a position like this is in terms of such dichotomies. The important part is that this description applies equally to all members of the continuum, e.g., "if 'I' like a song, am 'I' experiencing happiness or is 'my' electrochemical clump of 'me' just reacting?"
Both. Your electrochemical clump of you just reacting causes you to experience happiness.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#239I'm trying to be open-minded and make sense of the position. The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform? The second leap is saying science only tells us what matter does and not "the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of its…
> The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform?
This is the part where materialism has the burden of proof to explain a mechanism for how, suddenly, snow doesn't experience de-formation.
You get it. You've made the logical link of connections from human down to snow, and you see no mechanism for a sudden loss of the ability to experience.
The rational answer is to say that provided what we know about the universe right now, it seems that there is nothing that does not have the property of experience.
The only other rational answer is solipsism because there's no real evidence that anything other than your self has any experience, but that's no fun and doesn't have any interesting conclusions.
Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
#240What if our ideas about consciousness were an artifact of our language?
Just like our ideas about morality? Where a lot of the time if you are explicit all the “mystery” goes away?
So when you say an ought statement “A should do B”, what you really mean is “A should do B if A wants C to happen” which expands to “If A does B and C doesn’t happen, then any D can’t blame A if D wants to be rational”. It’s a bit self referential like that.
Ok so now everything suddenly becomes clear and you find you can’t formulate a single basic question about morality in English that doesn’t have an obvious answer. “You should do your homework! Unless you don’t care about your grades.” or “You should be consistent! Unless you don’t care about being viewed as a hypocrite.”
What if things simply were, and scrupulously including unspoken clauses made all basic questions about consciousness have obvious answers?
“What is it like to be a bat” is not a well formulated question.
However, try including the subject and object of the sentence all the time.
The bat saw the phenomenon
The bat’s body experienced a feeling
And so on.
Then the question comes down to two things:
1) Identity. That is a mental construct that organisms develop. It can have a lot of layers, such as how you see yourself, how you choose to express yourself, etc. But the biggest one is how you identify with the person you were a few years ago and with who you will be in the future. If you were gonna go on a vacation for 2 weeks but later not remember anything about it, does it matter where you go? Do you do things just to make your 80 year old self proud to remember them? And so on.
2) Existence. Yes actually the word existence has no well-defined meaning without resorting to conscious observers. Consider the question of whether the Harry Potter World exists or not. How is it different than not existing or a made-up work like blabladeblaa? The sentence “the Harry Potter World Really Exists” has almost no meaning without resorting to consciousness, we are just used to saying that word. Be thorough and you’ll always invoke yourself and your conscious awareness.
Now what if life never arose in the universe? In what sense would the universe exist any more than a Harry Potter world?
So in a way, the concepts of existence of consciousness are duals of each other!
People often think that the concept of existence is something fundamental. But it is really a dual of the concept of consciousness.