Does panpsychism explain abiogenesis?

[j_j]

@Wayfarer

Reality as disclosed to a knower has an ineliminably subjective or perspectival dimension, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. Whatever experience we have or knowledge we possess, it always occurs to a subject — a subject which only ever appears as us, as subject, not to us, as object.

This is close to my view. But I think we need to be more radical, not less radical than this.

You write “Reality as disclosed to a knower has an ineliminably subjective or perspectival dimension.” So “as disclosed” actually reduces the claim, because indirect realism will already grant this much.

I suggest instead that reality itself “has an ineliminably subjective or perspectival dimension.” Reality is shared but not objective.

Experience is reality. Period. But of course we have a pragmatic use of “real” that applies to what we count on. The “appearance/reality” distinction is only pragmatic and relative.

Kant writes, as you quote:

that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us

The post-dualist approach to this is temporal rather than spatial. The object-for-me-here-now is only a “moment” of “aspect” of the object. The object is here for me here and now as also-for-others and in terms of its past and possibility. The case for this is phenomenological. We need only look at our non-theoretical life. I share the road with other drivers, trusting my life to sense of perceiving and acting on perceptual objects that are also there and pragmatically relevant to those other drivers. Or I get immersed in some playful conversation with my spouse. What we discuss is “there” as “there for both us.” And so on.

The things we depend on and care about are things as they ( partially) appear.

As I see it, we want to acknowledge the “transcendence” of objects. They are not “just for me” or “in my pineal gland.” We don’t need to put the empirical world “inside people’s minds” just because the empirical world is obviously perspectival.

I prefer my reading of Plato to Kant here. The “idea” of the thing is its unity. A thing is a temporal and intersubjective synthesis of its moments. The thing does not hide behind its moments, but it can only show one side of itself but not showing its other sides. So the thing “hides ‘behind’ itself” in this temporal rather than spatial sense. But this is relationship of being and time. The thing is fundamentally a temporal synthesis.

“On those stepping into rivers, other and other waters flow.”

The “pre-temporal” philosopher dreamed of collapsing reality into a single vision, a single moment. But the world is “music,” and music lives only in time or as time.

@Wayfarer

But the way I put it is to say it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind.

Right. The object is not “in my individual mind.” But the object may show a moment of itself to me that it shows to no one else. To me it’s better to just acknowledge that objects show themselves differently to different subjects. The object depends on no particular consciousness, but — in my view — consciousness in general is simply the being or the presence of the world. So a world “outside” of consciousness is basically nonsense, but this word “outside” is misleading, because consciousness is not “inside stuff” that “contains unreal images.” This is how I understand “nonduality.” I don’t have consciousness. Consciousness has me. I just accept the weird relationship of sentience and brains as a brute fact. This also means that I understand claims about “the” past by scientific models as Peirce does, which is to say as claims about the future. Scientific models are tools for meeting the future. Where is the year 1953 ? “It” exists in some sense. But how exactly ? This is a rich side issue, but it comes up in After Finitude.

@Wayfarer

The problem with naturalism is that, in its pursuit of ever more refined objectivity, it tends to forget the irreducible subjectivity of knowing itself. It progressively abstracts from the knower in order to describe the known, and then risks mistaking that abstraction for a complete account of reality (c.f. The Blind Spot, Gleiser, Thompson and Frank.)

I don’t know if I would use “naturalism” for this, but we agree that many philosophers just ignore the problem of perspective. That’s how I’d frame it. The empirical world is from-a-point-of-view. “Objective reality” is nonsense at worst and a vague target at best.

It’s not how you’d do it, but I attack this naivety from the “left.” The problem with “scientism” is that it is indulgently metaphysical and presumptuous, leaving its fundamental terms hanging in the air, undefined. What does one even mean by “exist” ?

Scientism loses the empirical object of actual science, because scientism ( as I intend it here ) is just as metaphysical as a sophisticated theism ---- is a curious variant of theism, but its “God” has withered into mystified mathemagical truthmaker.

Instead of qualitative empirical objects, we get a bifurcation of “inside qualia” and the tiniest residue of “external true object.” This is utterly divorced from how we live and what we care about. It replaces reality with a video game.

[Elephant]

@invicta

Consciousness is not just the ability to act, such as pure volition but awareness too. You can be aware/conscious without needing volition although this is not as useful as the ability to act/react because the latter can ensure self-preservation.

Yes, this is one of the features of AI. While AI is very good at retrieving data if you query, it is also very good at retrieving bad data without batting an eye and presents this bad data without reservation. Only when the querier calls it out does the AI acknowledge the wrong information. I’ve experienced this many times already. Doubt is missing in AI response. And doubt is one of the features of awareness.

[Gnomon]

@Wayfarer

I understand panpsychism as an attempt to heal the mind–matter split by attributing mentality to matter. I agree with their diagnosis of the divide — but not with their proposed solution, which is the proposal that consciousness is somehow an intrinsic attribute of matter.

Surprisingly, neuroscientist Christof Koch, frustrated with the dead-ends of reductive materialism, has now adopted, what he calls a “scientific form” of Panpsychism1 (all Soul) to bridge the “divide” between Matter and Mind. He refers to Integrated Information Theory as a way to quantify the Qualia we call Consciousness. But I think philosophers will challenge him about watering-down the concept of Consciousness (awareness, sentience, alertness, etc) to make it stretch over all forms of matter. It’s a nice try, but that bridge won’t reach the other side, without losing the definitive qualities of Mind.

However, I do think he’s correct in concluding that Consciousness is not necessarily the result of a belated act of God : divine intervention. Instead, the Potential for Sentience and Sapience must have been inherent in the Singularity that went Bang! And “wise apes” (homo sapiens) are a late emergence from the continuum2 of Evolution. Evolution is indeed gradual, but it shows no evidence of “clear dividing lines” 3.

Therefore, I would propose a different “fundamental intrinsic property of the universe” as a quantifiable explanation for the eventual emergence of the mental property that, metaphorically, reaches out into the world to “grasp” its meaning ; its significance for the observer. For the last century we have gathered supporting evidence for Einstein’s equation, implying that "Energy is Everything"4. So, why not also the “activity” we call Consciousness, which is not a thing, but a property or quality of a complex organization of things?

.
1. Neuroscientist Christof Koch champions a scientific form of panpsychism, arguing that consciousness is a fundamental, intrinsic property of the universe rather than a mere by-product of complex biological brains.
The Combination Problem: Classical panpsychism struggles to explain how individual micro-experiences combine to form a unified macro-conscious mind. Koch argues that IIT addresses this by defining precise structural requirements for system integration.
Skepticism from Materialists: His shift away from strict reductive materialism toward panpsychism and idealism has drawn sharp critiques from traditional physicalists who label the ideas speculative or unscientific.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=christof+koch+panpsychism

2. A continuum is a continuous series, range, or whole where adjacent parts change gradually and blend into one another without any clear dividing lines or sudden jumps.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=continuum+definition

3. Evolution is an ongoing, unbroken process of genetic and phenotypic change across generations rather than a series of isolated, disjointed jumps.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=evolution+is+a+continuum

4. “Energy is everything” can refer to the fundamental scientific principle that all matter and activity in the universe consist of energy.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=energy+is+everything
Energy is not a thing, it’s a tendency to change.
As famous physicist Richard Feynman noted, we do not have a simple definition for what energy is in isolation; it is always a property of a physical system.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=energy+is+a+tendency+not+a+thing

[Hanover]

@prothero

I take issue with the assertion that “panpsychism would hold that the rocks on Mars were conscious” as this is a proposition that almost no serious or scholarly proponent would assert.

I was using the term “consciousness” in the minamilist way you were, which I’m not sure has any meaning upon examination.

I appreciate that panpsychism holds that the psychic property is present in everything, but can you even describe a rock that has it versus one that lacks it? Is this psychic property even imaginable or do we just assert it’s the everything element, a characteristic of thingness.

[prothero]

The way things “appear” to our perceptual process, does not really represent the way things “are” in themselves. The typical Kantian phenomena vs noumena as reflected in language. This assumes one thinks science and reason can penetrate beyond mere appearance.

So there is both an ontological and an epistemological assumption there. I don’t see how people who use different ontology and epistemology can ever come to any real agreement. They might understand each others point of view but will never share it.

[Wayfarer]

@j_j

Scientism loses the empirical object of actual science, because scientism ( as I intend it here ) is just as metaphysical as a sophisticated theism ---- is a curious variant of theism.

‘The jealous God dies hard’ is how I once put it. I think overall we’ve come pretty close on the major points.

[j_j]

@Wayfarer

‘The jealous God dies hard’ is how I once put it. I think overall we’ve come pretty close on the major points.

Yes indeed ! And we do strive personally, each of us, for coherence. So the “mono” in monotheism is not out of nowhere.

[prothero]

@Hanover

I appreciate that panpsychism holds that the psychic property is present in everything, but can you even describe a rock that has it versus one that lacks it? Is this psychic property even imaginable or do we just assert it’s the everything element, a characteristic of thingness.

No rock, nor any other form of simple aggregate would have any form of integrated psychic property. High level mind will require high levels of integrated structure. For instance human consciousness requires an intact and functioning human brain. Human consciousness is the result of the integrated processing and presentation of information gathered from the environment and processed by the body and brain (I might add a form of causal efficacy, required but not consciously noted). No rock or any other simple aggregate has this kind of structure and therefore no integrated information capability.

Now do the individual elements of the rock (what you might term atoms, electrons, quarks) have any form of physic property?. I must add that all these elements are IMHO events or processes and that is relevant to the following analysis. Yes, they do for extensive forms of panpsychism. In the analysis I use, this involves the notion that these “elements” are really repetitive events which have limited duration and must flow from past to present to future. This flow requires an element of "prehension (read primitive non conscious awareness) of the local environment (read other local events) of possibilities for the future (read forms or eternal objects).

One event perishes and a new event is created incorporating elements of the past and possibilities from the future in the creative advance and never ending flow of the process of nature

Now the kind of experience, or psychic property that such elements would have would be very limited and the possibilities presented would likewise be very limited. Non the less modern physics tells us there is more than one possibility (lure, feeling, satisfaction) for even quantum events in the form of stochastic probability distribution and that which value will emerge can not be predicted in advance (may not exist in advance) . In addition the behavior observed will depend on the experimental design (double slit, with or without detectors, etc. ). So we measure the empirical the physical but the psychic or mental pole is required for nature to flow and for alternative possibilities to be realized.

As to the trouble with defining consciousness, awareness, sentience, experience, mind, mental, psychic and other terms could not agree more. It why Whitehead invented the term “prehension” and also why he never uses panpsychism or consciousness in his discussion of these matters. I know it sounds a little crazy on first read. Yes human experience is a representation of part of the world but I do have an ontological commitment to realism and to monism.

[Hanover]

@prothero

the psychic or mental pole is required for nature to flow and for alternative possibilities to be realized.

Why?

Cause and effect can exist without psychic poles and alternative possibilities can exist under QM without psychic poles.

[Patterner]

@prothero

The way things “appear” to our perceptual process, does not really represent the way things “are” in themselves. The typical Kantian phenomena vs noumena as reflected in language. This assumes one thinks science and reason can penetrate beyond mere appearance.

Yes, but why don’t things appear as they are? Why should we have senses and brains that interpret reality to have a nature that it does not have?

I’m not denying it, mind you. Things aren’t what they seem to us. A rock is not rock at the lowest possible level. It is protons neutrons and electrons. And perhaps particles are not particles, they are just how we picture, as you say, events. But why do we picture then that way? sure, before we had any technological know how, thousands of years ago, we took it at face value. But why was his face value showing up as physical?

Now we know it’s not physical. But we still think of everything around us as physical. What’s really going on, possibly in your terms, is events register on our senses in ways we interpret as physical. That’s fine. It all amounts to physical.

Except for consciousness. That doesn’t register on our senses as anything physical.

@Hanover

I appreciate that panpsychism holds that the psychic property is present in everything, but can you even describe a rock that has it versus one that lacks it?

No. And neither can a rock. At that level of complexity, consciousness is, by our thinking, boring and meaningless.

@Hanover

Is this psychic property even imaginable or do we just assert it’s the everything element, a characteristic of thingness.

If it’s not there at there bottom, there’s no reason to think it can appear later. And nobody who thinks it does can say how. But I can’t begin to say what it’s like to be an electron or photon.

As for the “psychic property” itself? I don’t know how much difference it makes, but I’ve lately been calling it a capacity instead of a property. Consciousness isn’t a thing, or substance, or whatever. Consciousness isn’t hanging around waiting for something to experience. It is the experiencing of whatever the entity in question is. Without it, thr physical processes that make up a human would be nothing but physical processes. We would be no more interesting than automatons.

[Hanover]

I can’t say I follow much of this. I can certainly say I’m conscious and I accept from the behavior of others they are too, so I’m not confused as to whether I and others experience things.

It’s when consciousness is applied to rocks, but then described as so minimal that we can’t compare it to our own that I stop following. What it’s like to experience as a rock sounds like not experiencing at all, sort of like asking someone who was unconscious what it felt like. It felt like not feeling.

[invicta]

Doubt I would say is a feature of thinking and consciousness rather than awareness. All awareness is, is perception which cannot be doubted straight away. If you do doubt perception then that is simply an aspect of consciousness and thinking or overthinking.

But yeah you’re right, ai in its current form appears to give answers with a high level of certainty leaving very little room for self-doubt when it comes to generating its answers. This is perhaps a bug, the issue gets worse when instead of trying give room for doubt what it does is to fill that gap with hallucinations.

[Patterner]

I hear you. I would be happy to give up panpsychism for physicalism. But I don’t see how it’s workable, for two reasons.

First,consciousness does not have have physical properties or characteristics, and the physical properties and characteristics of the universe, in the words of Brian Greene, “seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience.” So there’s no logic to the idea that the physical can produce consciousness. And there’s no theory for how it might be happening. There’s only the assumption that, when things get complicated enough, it just happens.

Second, evolution is entirely physical. It’s a physical process that affects physical things. But, for the sake off argument, let’s say the physical can produce consciousness. If consciousness is not present at all times, in all things, and nothing is guiding evolution toward configurations that produce it, how do we explain the fact that a physical configuration came to be from which this new thing arose, which did not exist until the configuration, is so very different in nature from the configuration, and was never the point or purpose of the configuration?

I don’t pretend panpsychism is obvious, and there’s no more evidence for it than there is for physicalism. But we need a starting point that can get us there, and physicalism doesn’t provide that.

[bert1]

@Hanover

Cause and effect can exist without psychic poles

I’m not sure that’s true. The causal closure of the physical precludes psychic causation. But intuitively psychic causation exists (e.g eating because you feel hungry). Considering I’m already panpsychist for other reasons, and considering that we famously never see physical causation, perhaps therefore, all causation is psychic, or reducible to the psychic.

[Wayfarer]

@Patterner

evolution is entirely physical. It’s a physical process that affects physical things

I think this is what biopsychism calls into question. Organisms are not just “physical things”, and their actions are not wholly reducible to physics. “The organism doesn’t simply have a form; it enacts form against entropy. This active self-integration is what gives real meaning to the concept of ipseity (being a subject of experience). It is not simply a phenomenological unity but an ontological one: a being whose existence is its own continuous achievement. …The organism stands in a dialectical relation to its material constituents: it needs matter to exist, but maintains an identity distinct from a particular collection of matter. It “rides the wave” of material change, maintaining its form through the constant replacement of its substance. Dependent on matter as material, it is independent of any specific matter. Its identity is functional and formal, not material.”

I think the reason that organisms are thought to be physical, is another consequence of Cartesian dualism. Recall that this divided the world into physical and mental/spiritual. Res Cogitans became the ‘ghost in the machine’ and all that remained was res extensa, science’s mastery over which was taken as an endorsement of physicalism. But in reality, what does ‘only physical’ mean? I think it’s quite feasible to hold that nothing is wholly or only physical.

[Paine]

Please provide more accurate citations to your quotes from sources.

[Patterner]

@Wayfarer

I think this is what biopsychism calls into question.

As do I. I’m just saying this is the physicalist position. The Hard Problem is explaining consciousness from that position. It isn’t sufficient.

[j_j]

Are your challenging one of my claims ? I don’t mind providing more context, but I find the phrase “more accurate” ambiguous and even rude.

[Paine]

I do not mean to offend. I am interested enough in the quotes to want to know where to look for it. I ask the same of others when I am interested.

[j_j]

Thank you for clarifying. Can you be more specific about what you are looking for ?

Perhaps you meant something like this, from C. S. Peirce ?

How does the Future bear upon conduct? The answer is that future facts are the only facts that we can, in a measure, control; and whatever there may be in the Future that is not amenable to control are the things that we shall be able to infer, or should be able to infer under favorable circumstances.
…
It cannot be denied that acritical inferences may refer to the Past in its capacity as past; but according to Pragmaticism, the conclusion of a Reasoning proper must refer to the Future.
…
For its meaning refers to conduct, and since it is a reasoned conclusion must refer to deliberate conduct, which is controllable conduct. But the only controllable conduct is Future conduct.
…
Thus, a belief that Christopher Columbus discovered America really refers to the Future.

I find this intensely related to the early work of Heidegger.