Panpsychism is not as crazy as it sounds.

[MJ the Skeptical]

Divinity anywhere is nonsense let alone everywhere. If you want to essentially call every object conscious, or smaller yet, every particle conscious, you're free to be wrong.

This comes down to being pseudoscience when analyzed. People want to cling to ideas like Panpsychism or Panantheism or interesting ideas in Quantum Physics to keep their beliefs of divinity "conscious"

Divinity everywhere and within the nature of everything is pantheism.
Panpsychism is that the fundamental stuff of mind--which is not just electrochemical pulses but something more abstract, distinct from the physical, such as a thought of a pink elephant or a memory of a deceased family member--that IS a feature of the Universe as basic as gravity, and everything from the simplest forms of matter contain some form of it though it is realized by "us," our brain, our collection of cooperating and competing nerve cells, as conscious experience that emanates through countless, speedy neural firings

Where pantheism implies "soul" as this kind of deity, panpsychists are often naturalists in that mind is a natural phenomenon, not merely arising by natural law, but an integral law itself.

Thanks, that's why I edited my post, buddy. Why don't you quote what I re-wrote. I took two minutes to edit my words around and a few minutes later you respond. Give the post at least 5 minutes to sit a bit, that'd be nice.

I'll put what I re-wrote here so you don't have to go on page 5.

Clearly minds are sparse in the cosmos so it's just bullshit to claim you are surrounded by them other than beings with brains. If you want to essentially call every object conscious, or smaller yet, every particle conscious, you're free to be wrong.

This comes down to being pseudoscience when analyzed. People want to cling to ideas like Panpsychism or Panantheism or interesting ideas in Quantum Physics to keep their beliefs of divinity "conscious"

[Angrboda]

Panpsychism is that the fundamental stuff of mind--which is not just electrochemical pulses but something more abstract, distinct from the physical, such as a thought of a pink elephant or a memory of a deceased family member--that IS a feature of the Universe as basic as gravity, and everything from the simplest forms of matter contain some form of it though it is realized by "us," our brain, our collection of cooperating and competing nerve cells, as conscious experience that emanates through countless, speedy neural firings

To my view, panspychism is just a short cut to solve the physicalist paradox. To a physicalist, that which contains thoughts is matter. Yet matter only contains more matter. How can it contain thoughts? Panpsychism takes the shortcut of postulating that all matter can contain thought. It's solving the physicalist paradox by simply asserting that "stuff" has the right properties, therefore there is no paradox. In that, it's not that different from substance dualism, which, also asserts that there's a substance which "just does have the right properties," and that thing is the soul or spirit. The substance dualist solves the problem by attributing thought to a substance separate from matter; panpsychism solves the problem by attributing thought as a basic property of matter. But do either of these approaches actually solve the problem, or do they just postpone the inevitable mechanistic account of how either soul-stuff or matter itself gives rise to the property of thought that we see?

[Mudhammam]

Divinity everywhere and within the nature of everything is pantheism.
Panpsychism is that the fundamental stuff of mind--which is not just electrochemical pulses but something more abstract, distinct from the physical, such as a thought of a pink elephant or a memory of a deceased family member--that IS a feature of the Universe as basic as gravity, and everything from the simplest forms of matter contain some form of it though it is realized by "us," our brain, our collection of cooperating and competing nerve cells, as conscious experience that emanates through countless, speedy neural firings

Where pantheism implies "soul" as this kind of deity, panpsychists are often naturalists in that mind is a natural phenomenon, not merely arising by natural law, but an integral law itself.

Thanks, that's why I edited my post, buddy. Why don't you quote what I re-wrote. I took two minutes to edit my words around and a few minutes later you respond. Give the post at least 5 minutes to sit a bit, that'd be nice.

I'll put what I re-wrote here so you don't have to go on page 5.

Clearly minds are sparse in the cosmos so it's just bullshit to claim you are surrounded by them other than beings with brains. If you want to essentially call every object conscious, or smaller yet, every particle conscious, you're free to be wrong.

This comes down to being pseudoscience when analyzed. People want to cling to ideas like Panpsychism or Panantheism or interesting ideas in Quantum Physics to keep their beliefs of divinity "conscious"

I didn't know about the five minute rule, buddy.

I don't think panpsychism is a scientific position, but a philosophical one. Science, though it has made tremendous progress in understanding the brain, hasn't really figured out the ontological gap that still exists between matter and mind, that is how one brings about the other which then in turn comes to understand itself, to contain a map of a gigantic Universe, which includes the brain itself, inside it. That's still a mystery. And one that scientific as well as philosophical speculation, from the functionalists to the panpsychists, try to fill in the gaps, to varying success. But to flat out deny any possible basis for eventually establishing or falsifying the "interesting ideas in QP" or theories of consciousness, by just dismissing them, seems naive.

[Coffee Jesus]

and everything from the simplest forms of matter contain some form of it

Why is it contained within matter? Why doesn't it arise from material properties or interactions?
I think you're assuming that mental states are physical states rather than physical processes.

[Mudhammam]

and everything from the simplest forms of matter contain some form of it

Why is it contained within matter? Why doesn't it arise from material properties or interactions?
I think you're assuming that mental states are physical states rather than physical processes.

I think the fact that it does "arise" from matter, implies to some that it in some pre-existing or unexpressed form is contained within the basic structure of matter itself. Call it the "fundamentals of stuff" if you'd like. Some monists like Spinoza believed that the physical and phenomenal were two sides of the same coin, the same essential "stuff," both fundamental to the Universe. I haven't read up on Spinoza's arguments yet but at first glance, intuitively, I think it's an appealing idea and doesn't necessitate accepting the crap load of "woo-woo" sold under the guise of science or philosophy.

[Coffee Jesus]

I think the fact that it does "arise" from matter, implies to some that it in some pre-existing or unexpressed form is contained within the basic structure of matter itself. Call it the "fundamentals of stuff" if you'd like.

You're assuming that the world is fundamentally composed of states.

Some monists like Spinoza believed that the physical and phenomenal were two sides of the same coin

That appears to be the case in instances where mind is present.

the same essential "stuff," both fundamental to the Universe.

Not everybody experiences color, so color isn't fundamental to the universe. The same can be said about countless mental states.

You're lumping all phenomenal states into the same category even though they're clearly different. This lumping together is what leads idealists to argue that mental properties can only have causal relationships with other mental properties.

[MJ the Skeptical]

Thanks, that's why I edited my post, buddy. Why don't you quote what I re-wrote. I took two minutes to edit my words around and a few minutes later you respond. Give the post at least 5 minutes to sit a bit, that'd be nice.

I'll put what I re-wrote here so you don't have to go on page 5.

Clearly minds are sparse in the cosmos so it's just bullshit to claim you are surrounded by them other than beings with brains. If you want to essentially call every object conscious, or smaller yet, every particle conscious, you're free to be wrong.

This comes down to being pseudoscience when analyzed. People want to cling to ideas like Panpsychism or Panantheism or interesting ideas in Quantum Physics to keep their beliefs of divinity "conscious"

I didn't know about the five minute rule, buddy.

I don't think panpsychism is a scientific position, but a philosophical one. Science, though it has made tremendous progress in understanding the brain, hasn't really figured out the ontological gap that still exists between matter and mind, that is how one brings about the other which then in turn comes to understand itself, to contain a map of a gigantic Universe, which includes the brain itself, inside it. That's still a mystery. And one that scientific as well as philosophical speculation, from the functionalists to the panpsychists, try to fill in the gaps, to varying success. But to flat out deny any possible basis for eventually establishing or falsifying the "interesting ideas in QP" or theories of consciousness, by just dismissing them, seems naive.

"That'd be nice" = A rule?

And you're right, it's has no scientific backing and therefore is pseudoscience. Philosophical positions still need evidence to some degree to be taken seriously. You're obviously wrong about the mind gap, the brain is the physical medium for the mind. The mind is an emergent property of the brain. One Neuron on it's own does nothing, but gather enough neurons together and you've got a network of neurons making chemical reactions and forming a mind. That's why we can look at the neurons of other animals and see they have the same activity, just less of it.

[Coffee Jesus]

One Neuron on it's own does nothing, but gather enough neurons together and you've got a network of neurons making chemical reactions and forming a mind. That's why we can look at the neurons of other animals and see they have the same activity, just less of it.

One neuron isn't enough for memory recall or communication, but does that mean it's not enough for a mental state?

[MJ the Skeptical]

One Neuron on it's own does nothing, but gather enough neurons together and you've got a network of neurons making chemical reactions and forming a mind. That's why we can look at the neurons of other animals and see they have the same activity, just less of it.

One neuron isn't enough for memory recall or communication, but does that mean it's not enough for a mental state?

Is one neuron enough for a mental state? no.

[Little lunch]

I was very close to saying it all sounds like bullshit.
But I did a little research and can now say I have no idea.
Now it doesn't sound have as crazy as it did. :-)