My Argument for Panpsychism(ish?)

[Corvus]

@questioner

And if philosophy cannot see consciousness, neither, upon what does it build its bedrock?

Philosophy has its subdivision called metaphysics, which deals with the topics beyond appearance. It uses intuition, logic and rational analysis on the linguistic behavior and expressions.

[questioner]

@Corvus

It uses intuition, logic and rational analysis

So does science, with the added bonus of substantiated knowledge

[Corvus]

@questioner

So does science, with the added bonus of substantiated knowledge

Science cannot say anything about the objects they cannot observe.

[questioner]

@Corvus

Science cannot say anything about the objects they cannot observe.

That’s just not true. Many solid conclusions have been made using indirect evidence, inference and mathematical models.

Do you think that Watson and Crick actually saw the DNA double helix?

[Corvus]

@questioner

That’s just not true. Many solid conclusions have been made using indirect evidence, inference and mathematical models.

They are not solid conclusions. They are hypotheses.

@questioner

Do you think that Watson and Crick actually saw the DNA double helix?

Either they saw something via microscope, or again it is just a hypotheses.

[questioner]

@Corvus

They are not solid conclusions. They are hypotheses.

@Corvus

Either they saw something via microscope, or again it is just a hypotheses.

Well, no. That is just not so.

[Corvus]

If it was not a result from observation and verification, then it cannot be science. Any claims from imagination is either religion or superstition. Or just an opinion.

[PatternChaser]

@Corvus

I don’t want to reduce a human being below that. I am not interested in a human being with separated body parts or disembodied minds for speculation or philosophzing.

And yet, it appears to me that that is what you have done, with that first sentence in the above quote. To set aside things temporarily, to enhance focus and clarity, is something we all do, because we must, or we must consider the entire Universe. But you seem to be doing a bit more than that here. You seem to want to focus on a small part of a human bodymind as though that small part was independent, suitable to be considered alone, without context.

But maybe I’ve misunderstood your words?

[PatternChaser]

@Corvus

If it was not a result from observation and verification, then it cannot be science. Any claims from imagination is either religion or superstition. Or just an opinion.

And yet this is a philosophy forum, not a discussion forum for science…?

[questioner]

@Corvus

If it was not a result from observation and verification, then it cannot be science. Any claims from imagination is either religion or superstition. Or just an opinion.

If you think that only direct observation counts as science, and everything else is “imagination” or “religion” or “opinion” that pretty well means that nothing in modern science should count as science. Most of physics and biology would be disqualified.

With reference to Watson and Crick, they discovered the double helix structure of DNA through inference to the best explanation from indirect evidence (see the experiments of Franklin, Wilkins, Chargaff, as well as biochemical results that provided the bond angles and distances)

Anyway, that position – that a statement is cognitively meaningful only if it can be verified through empirical observation – called naïve verificationism – seems to put you in the camp of the logical positivists. Am I reading you right?

[Corvus]

@PatternChaser

But maybe I’ve misunderstood your words?

Yes, it appears so. I was just putting forward my methodology in philosophizing. If you don’t agree, then you don’t need to accept it of course.

[Corvus]

@PatternChaser

And yet this is a philosophy forum, not a discussion forum for science…?

I was defining what science should be.

[Corvus]

@questioner

If you think that only direct observation counts as science, and everything else is “imagination” or “religion” or “opinion” that pretty well means that nothing in modern science should count as science. Most of physics and biology would be disqualified.

Do you recall Newton was observing his apple tree for ages to figure out about the law of gravity?

Yes, some scientific theories can be made up in the arm chair with speculation, but it wouldn’t attract interest or agreements on it.

@questioner

Anyway, that position – that a statement is cognitively meaningful only if it can be verified through empirical observation – called naïve verificationism – seems to put you in the camp of the logical positivists. Am I reading you right?

I am not sure on naive verificationism. It sounds too naive. No, I don’t belong to any camps. I am just a hobby reader.

[questioner]

@Corvus

Do you recall Newton was observing his apple tree for ages to figure out about the law of gravity?

Seeing an apple fall from the tree might have been a bit of inspiration, but it did nothing to contribute to devising the law of gravity, which Newton developed over years, relying on the groundwork laid out by Kepler, Galileo and Descartes, and then doing a whole lot of mathematics

@Corvus

some scientific theories can be made up in the arm chair with speculation,

No, they can’t. You’ve confused the common usage of the word “theory” with a “scientific theory” - which is a set of conclusions based on a broad scope of evidence

@Corvus

I am just a hobby reader.

I love to read, too.

[Corvus]

It sounds like your post is off-topic for the OP. If you open a new OP with the topic, we can discuss further there.

[bert1]

@questioner

Consciousness is a function of the human brain.

No it isn’t. Why can’t the human brain do all its functions in the dark?

@questioner

What I do is accept the science.

The science is compatible with almost every philosophical position on consciousness

[questioner]

@bert1

Why can’t the human brain do all its functions in the dark?

?? There’s no light inside a living human skull

@bert1

The science is compatible with almost every philosophical position on consciousness

Strictly speaking, no, panpsychism does not break any laws of physics, but it remains an untested theory

Conversely, there is scientific evidence that our brains are wired for narrative - that the “stories” that the mind creates is what creates our reality and thus our consciousness.

Helps to explain why storytelling has been such an integral part of all human societies and civilizations

[Patterner]

@questioner

@bert1

Why can’t the human brain do all its functions in the dark?

?? There’s no light inside a living human skull

It’s a metaphor. In Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Chalmers wrote:

There is no analogous further question in the explanation of genes, or of life, or of learning. If someone says “I can see that you have explained how DNA stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next, but you have not explained how it is a gene”, then they are making a conceptual mistake. All it means to be a gene is to be an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function. But if someone says “I can see that you have explained how information is discriminated, integrated, and reported, but you have not explained how it is experienced”, they are not making a conceptual mistake. This is a nontrivial further question.

This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn’t all this information-processing go on “in the dark”, free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere.

[Patterner]

@questioner

Conversely, there is scientific evidence that our brains are wired for narrative

How we experience reality in the first place is the question, not whether or not we edit. The article you linked isn’t attempting to answer that question. That’s not the article’s purpose.

Again, Chalmers’ asks:

Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red?

Here are other ways of wording the question, in case someone asks it in a way that gets the point across more clearly.

In Until the End of Time, Brian Greene wrote:

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings?

In this Closer To Truth video, Donald Hoffman says:

It’s not just that we don’t have scientific theories, we don’t have remotely plausible ideas about how to do it.

…

How could it be that sodium, and potassium, and calcium ions going through holes in membranes of this particular neuron causes my experience of Red 31? Now the mystery is even more intensified. So the neural correlates of consciousness don’t solve the problem, they make it more intense. Why should it be that consciousness seems to be so tightly correlated with activity that is utterly different in nature then conscious experience?

In
this Closer To Truth video, David Eagleman says:

Your other question is, “Why does it feel like something?”. That we don’t know. And the weird situation we’re in in modern neuroscience, of course, is that, not only do we not have a theory of that, but we don’t know what such a theory would even look like. Because nothing in our modern mathematics says, “Ok, well, do a triple interval, carry the 2, and then {clicks tongue} here’s the taste of feta cheese.” So that’s the challenge we’re up against.

[bert1]

@questioner

Conversely, there is scientific evidence that our brains are wired for narrative - that the “stories” that the mind creates is what creates our reality and thus our consciousness.

Narratives are not consciousness