My Argument for Panpsychism(ish?)

I believe otherwise.

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For animals, asleep or awake would be good enough words for what they do. :slight_smile:

I was intentionally vague, because there are no sharp boundaries. Is a self-replicating molecule ALIVE? Debatable. Is a amoeba conscious? Depends on how you define conscious.

My cat does far more than that. But I don’t understand your point.

My point was, rather than saying cats are conscious or unconscious, experiencing or not experiencing, it would be far more making sense to say, they are awake or asleep, sitting on the matt or chasing the mouse.

Some folks treat pets like humans, and project their own emotions to them. But they are domesticated animals with repressed wild instincts, better off being in the wild for their freedom.

With my added 2 cents, since you were wondering about the point. :slight_smile:

Does it matter more how many atoms have come together, or in what way or in what shape or form atoms have come together?

Does ‘sand’ itself have a so-called ‘problem’? Or, is the ‘actual problem’ in ‘the question’ that you form?

Okay, but what seems ‘intuitive’, to you, exactly?
And, does what ‘seem’ intuitive or untuitive really have any bearing on what is actually True or Real, or not, anyway?

Then, everything would be and is conscious, clearly.

What does ‘conscious’ even mean, or refer to, to you, exactly?
If, to you, the word ‘conscious’ entails having the ability to relect on its identity or has memory, then it could be said not everything is ‘conscious’, but, if everything that does react, in some sense, is aware and conscious, then everything that does react has consciousness or is conscious. So, it will depend on your definition/s here.

What are these so-called ‘much more complex systems’, exactly?
Also, and as ‘we’ can see here again, when people just do not yet know something, they have a tendency to label ‘that thing’ ‘complex’, when really ‘it’ is not at all.

Okay.

I think you could have ‘argued’ this in a much more logically reasoned,sound and valid way.

you are now using words in ‘a way’ that is lessening your “argument” instead of strengthening it.

you are certaining on the ‘Right path’, as some might say, but what you are wanting to express can be expressed in a much more logically reasoned and unable to be refuted way.

I think it is. But maybe we shouldn’t detail this thread quite so much. Hehe

Corvus:
Ah. I gotcha. And for all those things, I agree. I prefer that awake and asleep not be synonymous with conscious and unconscious.

So are you saying a cat that is awake is not conscious? Is consciousness a quality/characteristic that only humans have?

Cat cannot tell you what he is experiencing, hence it is not really meaningful to say cat is conscious or unconscious.

Cat is awake or asleep, or full of beans and is chasing the toys, or is sitting on the matt. That sounds more normal to me. But that’s just my idea. Of course you can agree or disagree.

Btw I’ve been gone so thanks for keeping up with the thread. Anyways, I would say that basically I agree with your view. When I mean to say consciousness is physical reaction I Moreso mean that reaction is the evidence of consciousness. Like how you described it an electron is experiencing but not thinking. I agree. I think originally, I kind of explained my stance wrong because I believe without reaction there would be nothing for an electron to experience and so I ended up wrongly equating experience and reaction.

Not at all. This post is just what feels intuitive to me and trying to get some interesting conversation.

The complex systems are the connections of billions of neurons.

How so? I mean probably yeah, this post isn’t meant to be a formal proof of any kind.

?

Well, I’m all ears if you would like to steelman my position!

I find it meaningful, because we’re talking about the nature of consciousness. Since I am conscious, were discussing my nature. Of course, anyone can go through life without ever hearing a word about any of this, never having any inkling of these concepts, and be as happy, productive, or anything else, as anyone else. We could say the same about music, and we know deaf people can be as happy as people who hear music. But some people are extremely fond of music and even devote their lives to it. I have not dedicated my life to consciousness studies, but I think it is the most important thing in the universe, the one thing most people would not give up for any reason, and the most mysterious and fascinating thing. I would like to understand it.

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I look at this another way. I am not my brain or my body. I am “consciousness/a conscious entity” having a human experience. As such, I can relate to that without having to use that as my ultimate “I Am” - my self identity…

Sure. Good point. I agree. I too, find the topic of consciousness interesting. I can access your consciousness via your writings, and the points you are making. I don’t have any other way to access to your consciousness. Hence I feel our language is the vessel of our consciousness.

In other aspect of consciousness is its manifestation through arts such as music, as you mentioned, paintings, sculptures or literature such as poems, short stories and novels and films too.

I feel that they are all concrete manifestations of the creators consciousness via sharing their thoughts and ideas in the writings, the symbolic images with the colours and shapes depicting the objects in the world in abstract or realistic way or inspirational music performed by the musicians with us readers, spectators and listeners of the work.

Could it mean that when we are reading, seeing and watching the works of art, we are accessing the artists consciousness in depth, or would it be just our own entertainment and passing time, possibly projecting our own thoughts and consciousness with the works? I am sure people might have different ideas on this.

But whatever the case, the dead people’s consciousness doesn’t seem to be existing in this world. The dead, once departed this world, never seem to be able to communicate with us, unless they have left their writings on philosophical topics such as Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant or Hegel etc, and in the case of the artists, poets or writers, the works of arts, or music.

We cannot directly communicate with the dead people’s consciousness, but we can access the consciousness of their time of living existence before their deaths through the works they have left. Could it mean that the dead artists consciousness could be keep existing after their death via their art works?

So, are you saying the word ‘complex’ here is in relation to the number of things only, and not to comprehending and understanding them?

Okay, fair enough. I will leave it as it is then.

I certainly do not want to ‘steelman’ ‘your position’.

Now, if we take the view that matter is aware because it reacts, and if the word ‘aware’ refers to ‘conscious’ and the word ‘consciousness’ is aligned with ‘awareness’, then all the matter of the Universe is ‘aware’, as you said, “in some sense”.
However, there are different levels of ‘awareness’, generally, as well as within the three different categories of animal, vegetable, and mineral.
For example, a rock ‘reacts’ to water and wind, but are rocks ‘aware/conscious’ of what is happening?
Plants also ‘react’ to their environment. Some trees grow taller to compete with others for sunlight; some plants follow the sun around for more life source; others have traps to obtain nutrients, and are ‘aware’ when to eat. Vegetables, therefore, it could be said and argued, have more ‘awareness/consciousness’ than minerals, or maybe better worded, ‘react’ more, or in a more obvious way, than minerals do.
Animals too ‘react’ to their environment. The human animal appears to ‘react’ more and in far more obvious ways than all of the other animals, vegetables, and minerals, as can be clearly seen by what human beings have imagined, invented, and created.

As it stands, minerals appear to all be roughly on the same level of ‘reactiveness’, with vegetables appearing to have differing levels of ‘reacting’ to the environment, and animals being on another level of being more ‘reactive’ than vegetables and minerals as well as appearing to have a far more varying degree or far more different levels of ‘reacting’ within the animal group than the other groups have.

Animals also appear to have far more ‘awareness/consciousness’ of the environment than vegetables and minerals, some animals appearing to have far more ‘awareness/consciousness’ than other animals do. For example, human beings appear to be more ‘conscious’ of “themselves” and also have more ‘awareness’ of “themselves”, and maybe a lot more than any other animal does.
It could also be said that as the human animal ages, individually, from birth, an ‘awareness’ of ‘self’ becomes stronger or a more ‘self-conscious awareness’ arises. The same could also be said about the human animal, collectively. Over millennia, some might consider the human animal has increased in ‘self-awareness’.
However, since some human beings are still searching for the answer to the question, ‘Who am I’?’ ‘self-awareness’ is still an evolving process. A lot of human beings are not even able to provide a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘Who are ‘we’ human beings, and people, exactly?’ So, ‘awareness’ itself is still growing and increasing, or evolving, and some might argue that ‘consciousness/awareness’ of “our selves” has a long way more to go for some people.

If we say that because matter reacts, matter is therefore ‘aware’, in a sense, and since matter exists and has been reacting forever, we could say that ‘awareness’ has always been around, and it is just through the continually-evolving forming and formation of matter, through matter evolving into created varying shapes and forms ‘awareness/consciousness’ will keep evolving until full Consciousness/Awareness is reached. When awareness/conscious has evolved enough, then knowing who and what ‘we’, are, and ‘I’ am, exactly, will be obtained.

Having said all that, I too, sometimes become a panpsychist, when my phone or book goes missing, and I cannot find it.

I tend to start thinking for some reason the phone and book don’t like me, and are hiding away from me.

That’s an excellent example of the misunderstanding of panpsychism. :laughing:

I have an uncanny ability to get red lights. I mean, people have commented on it. From those who I’ve told about it confirming it after seeing me in action, to those who had me in their car as a passenger for the first time commenting in great confusion that they had never gotten so many red lights before, which I apologize for, explaining it’s my fault. I’m an atheist, but I take all that as proof of God’s existence. God just shunts me from universe to universe, always moving me to one where the light up ahead will be red when I get to it.

What is the correct definition of panpsychism in your own understanding?

My understanding is that consciousness is fundamental, a property of all matter, all primary particles, just as mass and charge are. (I think capacity is a better word than property, but I haven’t figured out how much I think it matters.)

Because this capacity is in everything, everything experiences itself. The nature of a thing determines what it experiences. Electrons don’t experience any kind of mental activity. No sensory input. No emotion. They experience their own charge. I don’t know what else, if anything.

Books and phones don’t have the kinds and/or numbers of information processing systems and feedback loops to experience things like not liking someone and trying to avoid them.

Actually, although I haven’t really gotten into it too much here, I don’t think conglomerates of particles that are not processing information experience as a unit. Physical proximity doesn’t do the job. So a book is really just a huge number of particles individually experiencing.

Some think the laws of physics are information, and even a hydrogen atom, alone, is, because the opposite charges of the proton and electron attract each other, processing information. So a hydrogen atom is experiencing as a unit, rather than merely two particles individually experiencing. (Although, even if that’s true, I think the two particles are also individually experiencing.)

DNA replication is information processing. So the molecule, and the various molecule machines that are doing the work of replicating it, are all experiencing as a unit. But we still don’t have things like mental activity, sensory input, and emotions.

Does a phone contain information processing and feedback loops? If it does, I can’t imagine enough, and enough kinds, for the entire phone experience as a unit. But I really don’t know. Maybe just different parts of it experience as different units.

It sounds describing consciousness as extremely physical in the way even matter, all primary particles are included as the source of consciousness.

And yet, it looks inconsistent to say, phones and books are not conscious because of lack of feedback loops.

Panpsychism, the word itself comes from Pan(everything) + psychism(souls or spirits), which means you posit souls and spirits to every existence in the universe.

If you deny some objects are not conscious, because they lack feedback loop, then you are not talking about panpsychism anymore. You must be talking about something totally different. Does it make sense?

Isn’t panpsychism a system of belief from (based on) psychological or religious point of view on the souls and spirits and the objects in the world?

Panpsychism is not some school of science which studies how the particles or information processing system work on the objects? That would be what physics folks do?

I am not sure on these points, but they have been my view on panpsychism. I might be wrong the point there. Perhaps you could confirm on the points? Thanks.