My question for panpsychists is similar to my question for Cosmin: what does it buy you in terms of explanations or predictions?
Just blanket-asserting that all matter is conscious doesn't tell me anything about consciousness itself. For example, what would it mean for my fingernails to be conscious? Does my fingernail consciousness factor in somehow to my own experience of consciousness? If so, how? What about all the other parts of my body, about individual cells? Does the bacteria living in my body contribute its consciousness somehow? It quickly runs aground on the same rocks that arguments about "soul" do - there's no principled way to talk about it that elucidates relationships between brains, bodies, and minds. Panpsychism does nothing to explain the effect of drugs on consciousness, or brain damage. Like Cosmin's ideas, it's all just post-hoc rationalization. Panpsychism is the philosophical equivalent of throwing your hands up and saying "I dunno, I guess it's all conscious somehow!" What I'm suggesting posits that consciousness arises from the cybernetic organization of a system, that what the system experiences, as a whole, is identified with the informational-dynamics captured by that organization. This yields explanations for the character of a given system's consciousness... something panpsychism cannot do. Terren On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:57 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > > I see the coin made (as the ones lying on my desk right now made of metal) > of matter. > > The two sides of the coin (of matter) are *physical *and *psychical*: > > https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/matter-gets-psyched/ > > > If ὕ – the first Greek letter for “hyle”, upsilon (υ) with diacritics > dasia and oxia (U+1F55) – is used for the symbol of matter, φ (phi) for > physical, + ψ (psi) for psychical, then > > > ὕ = φ + ψ > > > (i.e., the combination of *physical* and *psychical* properties is a more > complete view of what matter is). The physical is the (quantitative) > behavioral aspect of matter – the kind that is formulated in mathematical > language in current physics, for example – whereas the psychical is the > (qualitative) experiential aspect of matter, at various levels, from brains > on down. There is no reason in principle for only φ to the considered by > science and for ψ to be ignored by science. > > @philipthrift > > > > On Friday, May 3, 2019 at 2:10:05 PM UTC-5, Terren Suydam wrote: >> >> I see them as two sides of the same coin - as in, you don't get one >> without the other. >> >> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:00 PM <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> If "consciousness doesn't supervene on physical [or material] >>> computation" then does that mean there is realm for (A) consciousness and >>> one for (B) physical [or material] computation? >>> >>> Is A like some spirit or ghost that invades the domain of B? Or does B >>> invade A? >>> >>> @philipthrift >>> >>> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
