Krimel said to dmb:
In bed with a metaphysical SOMer you now seek a three way with a Christian
bio-theologian IDer, who says, "In so far as any line is drawn it is completely
arbitrary. The logical alternative is to propose that there is no line of
demarcation any more than there is a line between living and non living in
evolution." That squares with Pirsig's discrete and feuding inorganic and
biological levels how? BTW, does he know who you're are sleeping with these
days?
dmb says:
As shocking as it may seem, I actually agree with Platt about at least one
thing; you are using personal insults to dismiss the messenger INSTEAD of
dealing with the message. Everyone knows that ad hominem attacks are not a
valid. Even non-philosophers know this. This is especially bogus in the case
with panpsychism. This view has been a respectable and valid philosophical
option since the very beginning. It stretches from Heraclitus to Chalmers. It's
simply ignorant to dismiss the idea as flakey new-age nonsense. One certainly
doesn't have to be an advocate of Christianity or intelligent design either. If
you dismiss every thinker who ever thought panpsychism was plausible, you'd
have to dismiss about half of the philosophers who ever lived. And you don't
have to take my word for it. Look it up and see for yourself. Here is an
excerpt from a peer-reviewed encyclopedia article. This part just covers the
last century or so but it goes all the way back to the pre-Socratic philo
sophers.This section stretches from William James to David Chalmers and you'll
see that panpsychism, "offers a naturalistic escape from Cartesian dualism and
Christian theology".
Twentieth Century to the PresentWilliam James first addressed the subject of
panpsychism in his Principles of Psychology. He devoted a full chapter to
Clifford’s mind-stuff theory, and displayed notable sympathy to the view.
James’ first personal endorsement of panpsychism came in his Harvard lecture
notes of 1902-3, in which he noted, “pragmatism would be [my] method and
‘pluralistic panpsychism’ [my] doctrine” (Perry, 1935: 373). In his 1905-6
lecture notes he observed: “Our only intelligible notion of an object in itself
is that it should be an object for itself, and this lands us in panpsychism and
a belief that our physical perceptions are effects on us of ‘psychical’
realities…” (ibid: 446).
James arrived at a clear and unambiguous position in his 1909 book, A
Pluralistic Universe. He explained that his theory of radical empiricism is a
form of pluralist monism in which all things are both pure experience and “for
themselves,” that is, are objects with their own independent psychical
perspectives. In the end he endorsed “a general view of the world almost
identical with Fechner’s” (ibid: 309-10). He saw in this new worldview “a great
empirical movement towards a pluralistic panpsychic view of the universe”
(ibid: 313).
In the early part of the twentieth century, panpsychist philosophy continued to
develop rapidly in England and the USA. The dominant philosophical system, the
one most connected with panpsychism, was Process Philosophy. Its earliest
advocates were Bergson and Whitehead.
Bergson wrote Creative Evolution in 1907. His thesis—that matter is “the lowest
degree of mind”—echoes Peirce. He added, following Schopenhauer, that “pure
willing [is the] current that runs through matter, communicating life to it”
(1907/1911: 206). But Bergson’s clearest elaboration came in Duration and
Simultaneity (1922). Here he achieved a true process philosophy wherein all
physical events contain a memory of the past. Given his earlier insistence that
memory is essential to mind, one can see the conclusion that mind, or
consciousness, is in all things:
What we wish to establish is that we cannot speak of a reality that endures
without inserting consciousness into it. … [I]t is impossible to imagine or
conceive a connecting link between the before and after without an element of
memory and, consequently, of consciousness. … We may perhaps feel averse to the
use of the word “consciousness” if an anthropomorphic sense is attached to it.
[But] there is no need to take one’s own memory and transport it, even
attenuated, into the interior of the thing. … It is the opposite course we must
follow. … [D]uration is essentially a continuation of what no longer exists
into what does exist. This is real time, perceived and lived. … Duration
therefore implies consciousness; and we place consciousness at the heart of
things for the very reason that we credit them with a time that endures
(1922/1965: 48-49).Whitehead’s panpsychism is relatively well known. It is
based in his view of an “occasion of experience” as the ultimate pa
rticle of reality, and as possessing both a physical pole and a mental pole.
If things are nothing but occasions, and occasions are in part mental, then all
things have a mental dimension. In Modes of Thought (1938), in the chapter
titled “Nature Alive,” he observed, “this [traditional] sharp division between
mentality and nature has no ground in our fundamental observation. [...] I
conclude that we should conceive mental operations as among the factors which
make up the constitution of nature” (p. 156).
Bertrand Russell ultimately came to a neutral monist view in which events were
the primary reality, and mind and matter were both constructed from them. After
some early, suggestive comments, he became increasingly supportive of
panpsychism in the late 1920′s. Russell’s book An Outline of Philosophy(1927)
directly addressed this. He wrote: “My own feeling is that there is not a sharp
line, but a difference of degree [between mind and matter]; an oyster is less
mental than a man, but not wholly un-mental” (p. 209). Part of the reason why
we cannot draw a line, he says, is that an essential aspect of mind is memory,
and a memory of sorts is displayed even by inanimate objects: “we cannot, on
this ground [of memory], erect an absolute barrier between mind and matter. …
[I]nanimate matter, to some slight extent, shows analogous behavior” (p. 306).
In the summary he adds,
The events that happen in our minds are part of the course of nature, and we do
not know that the events which happen elsewhere are of a totally different
kind. The physical world…is perhaps less rigidly determined by causal laws than
it was thought to be; one might, more or less fancifully, attribute even to the
atom a kind of limited free will (p. 311).Perhaps Russell’s clearest statement
came in his Portraits from Memory (1956). Memory is “the most essential
characteristic of mind, … using this word [memory] in its broadest sense to
include every influence of past experience on present reactions” (pp. 153-4).
As before, memory applies to all physical objects and systems:
This [memory] also can be illustrated in a lesser degree by the behavior of
inorganic matter. A watercourse which at most times is dry gradually wears a
channel down a gully at the times when it flows, and subsequent rains follow [a
similar] course… You may say, if you like, that the river bed ‘remembers’
previous occasions when it experienced cooling streams. … You would say [this]
was a flight of fancy because you are of the opinion that rivers and river beds
do not ‘think’. But if thinking consists of certain modifications of behavior
owing to former occurrences, then we shall have to say that the river bed
thinks, though its thinking is somewhat rudimentary (p. 155).In contrast to
Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne articulated a clear and explicit form of process
panpsychism. Beginning with his Beyond Humanism (1937), he laid out the
unambiguous position that all true individuals possess a kind of psyche:
“Molecules, atoms, and electrons all show more analogy of behavio
r to animals than do sticks and stones. The constitutions of inorganic masses
may then after all belong on the scale of organic being…” (pp. 111-112).
Elaborating on this notion over four decades, through such articles as
“Panpsychism” (1950), “Physics and Psychics” (1977), and “The Rights of the
Subhuman World” (1979), his panpsychism (or, “psychicalism”) is a clear and
consistent theme. He combined the insights of Leibniz with Whitehead’s process
view into a system which, he claimed, resolved many long-standing philosophical
problems: most notably that it serves as a third way between dualism and
materialism. Ultimately, panpsychism/psychicalism is, he says, the most viable
ontology available to us—certainly preferable to an utterly unintelligible
materialism: “the concept of ‘mere dead insentient matter’ is an appeal to
invincible ignorance. At no time will this expression ever constitute
knowledge” (1977: 95).
Many other great thinkers of the twentieth century promoted panpsychist ideas,
including:
F. S. C. Schiller: “A stone, no doubt, does not apprehend us as spiritual
beings… But does this amount to saying that it does not apprehend us at all,
and takes no note whatever of our existence? Not at all; it is aware of us and
affected by us on the plane on which its own existence is passed… It faithfully
exercises all the physical functions, and influences us by so doing. It
gravitates and resists pressure, and obstructs…vibrations, and so forth, and
makes itself respected as such a body. And it treats us as if of a like nature
with itself, on the level of its understanding…” (1907: 442).Samuel Alexander:
“there is nothing dead, or senseless in the universe, [even] Space-Time itself
being animated”(1920: 69).John Dewey : “[T]here is nothing which marks off the
plant from the physico-chemical activity of inanimate bodies. The latter also
are subject to conditions of disturbed inner equilibrium, which lead to
activity in relation to surrounding things, and which te
rminate after a cycle of changes…” (1925: 253).Sir Arthur Eddington: “The
stuff of the world is mind-stuff” (1928: 276).J. B. S. Haldane: “We do not find
obvious evidence of life or mind in so-called inert matter…; but if the
scientific point of view is correct, we shall ultimately find them, at least in
rudimentary form, all through the universe” (1932: 13).J. Huxley: “[M]ind or
something of the nature as mind must exist throughout the entire universe. This
is, I believe, the truth” (1942: 141).Teilhard de Chardin: “there is
necessarily a double aspect to [matter’s] structure… [C]o-extensive with their
Without, there is a Within to things.” “[W]e are logically forced to assume the
existence in rudimentary form…of some sort of psyche in every corpuscle, even
in those (the mega-molecules and below) whose complexity is of such a low or
modest order as to render it (the psyche) imperceptible…” (1959: 56, 301).C. H.
Waddington: “[S]omething must go on in the si
mplest inanimate things which can be described in the same language as would
be used to describe our self-awareness” (1961: 121).Gregory Bateson: “The
elementary cybernetic system with its messages in circuit is, in fact, the
simplest unit of mind; … More complicated systems are perhaps more worthy to be
called mental systems, but essentially this is what we are talking about. … We
get a picture, then, of mind as synonymous with cybernetic system… [W]e know
that within Mind in the widest sense there will be a hierarchy of subsystems,
any one of which we can call an individual mind” (1972: 459-60).Freeman Dyson:
“The laws [of physics] leave a place for mind in the description of every
molecule… In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the
processes of human consciousness differ only in degree and not in kind…” (1979:
249).David Bohm: “That which we experience as mind…will in a natural way
ultimately reach the level of the wavefunction and of
the ‘dance’ of the particles. There is no unbridgeable gap or barrier between
any of these levels. … It is implied that, in some sense, a rudimentary
consciousness is present even at the level of particle physics” (1986:
131).Panpsychism enters the 21st century with vigor and diversity of thought. A
number of recent works have focused attention on it. If we look back to the
year 1996 we find two books that contributed to a resurrection of sorts. First,
Chalmers’ The Conscious Mind lays out a naturalistic dualism theory of mind in
which he suggests (with an apparent diffidence) that mind can be associated
with ubiquitous information states—following Bateson and Bohm, though without
citing their panpsychist views. His relatively detailed discussion of
panpsychism sparked a resurgence of discussion on the matter, and contributed
to a wider interest. Also, Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous argued from a
phenomenological basis for a return to an animistic worldview, though hi
s work was more poetic essay than detailed philosophical inquiry. In 1998
process philosopher David Ray Griffin published Unsnarling the World-Knot, a
major milestone in panpsychist philosophy. Griffin supplies a detailed and
scholarly assessment of the subject, though with a strong focus on the process
view, and with only a cursory historical study.
Into the present century, Christian DeQuincey’s Radical Nature (2002) offers
another process perspective, and a more satisfying review of the historical
aspect. In 2003 there were two more books dedicated to panpsychism: David
Clarke’s Panpsychism and the Religious Attitude, and Freya Mathews’ For Love of
Matter. Clarke again takes the process view, underscoring the dominance of this
philosophical perspective on the discussion. Mathews moves into new territory;
drawing inspiration from Schopenhauer, she crafts a truly metaphysical
philosophy in which humans are sensitive participants in an animate cosmos.
Gregg Rosenberg released a nominally panpsychist approach to mind in 2004, with
his book A Place for Consciousness. In 2005, Skrbina published the first-ever
comprehensive study of the subject, Panpsychism in the West. Most recently,
Galen Strawson has presented a forceful argument for panpsychism based on the
inexplicability of emergence of mind (see Section 4).
Thus, at present we can discern at least six active lines of inquiry into
panpsychism:
the Process Philosophy view, as conceived by Bergson and Whitehead, and
developed by Hartshorne, Griffin, DeQuincey, and Clarke;the Quantum Physics
approach, as developed by Bohm, Hameroff, and others;the Information Theory
approach, arising from the work of Bateson, Wheeler (1994), Bohm, and
Chalmers;the Part-Whole Hierarchy, as envisioned by Cardano and elaborated by
Koestler (1967) and Wilber (1995);the Nonlinear Dynamics approach, as inspired
by Peirce (1892) and further articulated by Skrbina (1994, 2001); andStrawson’s
(2006) “real physicalism” (see Section 4).These areas all offer significant
opportunity for development and articulation. They hold out the hope of
resolving otherwise intractable problems of emergentism and mechanism,
especially when so many conventional approaches have reached a dead end. As
Nagel, Searle, and others have noted, the problems of mind and consciousness
are so difficult that “drastic actions” are warranted—perhaps even as drastic
as
panpsychism.
Panpsychism, with its long list of advocates and sympathizers, is a robust and
respectable approach to mind. It offers a naturalistic escape from Cartesian
dualism and Christian theology. And, by undermining the mechanistic worldview,
it promises to resolve not only long-standing philosophical problems but
persistent social and ecological problems as well. Many great thinkers, from
Empedocles and Epicurus to Campanella and LaMettrie, Fechner and James to
Gregory Bateson, have recognized the potential for the panpsychist view to
fundamentally alter, for the better, our outlook on the world. An animated
worldview is not only philosophically rigorous, but it can have far-reaching
and unanticipated effects.
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