Okay, I've watched the video now (I think I got the right one: "S02E01 Sean Carroll: Is Consciousness Emergent?") and yes it was brilliant... very interesting. And yes I agree Sean Carroll did 'wreck' the Panpsychist, Philip Goff... or at least didn't cede much, if any ground to him. But it was still very interesting to see all three of these perspectives, and learn some new concepts in the process, like strong and weak emergence. But I have to say I didn't find anything Goff had to say persuasive... interesting maybe, in the sense of learning about his position, but not persuasive... and some of it, downright strange; like suggesting electrons behave differently in the brain (as an example of strong emergence, if I'm understanding that correctly); I mean, I've never seen anyone else argue for that, see no reason to argue for that (neither did Carroll), and ultimately don't see how it helps his case... but he didn't really get the chance to make his full case, so there is that.
It was good though, the video did cover all the stuff we've been talking about, including pz's. Sean's view was interesting, not quite the same as mine, but definitely the closest of the three. There are still some differences between ep and physicalism that I have to resolve.
I at least have a little bit better understanding from the video... how Goff (tried to) put forward the case that consciousness could underlie the mathematics of the universe, or core theory, and that therefore gives me a little bit better grasp of how panpsychist units lets say might work together/coalesce, and therefore perhaps could be part of systems as you and TGN are suggesting. So I'll give you guys that, but beyond that I really don't have much to say. It still doesn't feel very plausible to me, but I will try to keep an open mind
It was good though, the video did cover all the stuff we've been talking about, including pz's. Sean's view was interesting, not quite the same as mine, but definitely the closest of the three. There are still some differences between ep and physicalism that I have to resolve.
(January 26, 2023 at 3:27 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:(January 26, 2023 at 11:40 am)emjay Wrote: Yes well, I've always wondered about what the simplest sort of system that could have consciousness... so I have no problem with there being degrees of complexity of consciousness in that sense... but it would still probably have to be a system to me, and that's the main difference to me between Panpsychism, and other theories; ie the difference between saying lots of individual things - particles or whatever - have individual, collective, or accumulated consciousness ie basically quantifiable, vs some collection of things, a functional unit of some kind, a neural circuit for instance, being responsible. I can't say it's wrong... on paper I guess both are just as radical as each other, as has been said before - but it is completely at odds with how I do think about consciousness as it stands.
Keep in mind panpsychism is meant to be a response to the hard problem itself. Philosophers who hold to a panpsychist view like Philip Goff, Galen Strawson, and even David Chalmers (for a while, at least) tend to (1) very strongly believe (actually, even infallibly so) that phenomenal consciousness is real, (2) find it extremely challenging to account for the emergence of consciousness from brains using the standard physicalist account, and yet (3) still hold to physicalism to a very strong extent at least. They don't do this because they're looking for something fancy to mystify them more or something. They do this in response to the observations made.
Now, sure, panpsychism at the core is mostly speculative, typically vague and suffers its own exclusive problems (such as the combination problem). And it's malleable: you could tweak it however you see fit in order to harmonize it as best you can with what the current sciences say, which renders it a very bad "theory" of course. But like I said earlier, it's not really meant to be a theory, but sort of a template for more specific versions.
And you could combine panpsychism with emergentism as well, so you could then have a hybrid view and you'd still require the CNS for human consciousness in particular. Maybe the brain then "flares up" the consciousness contained within its arrangement of atoms or something everytime specific patterns of neural firings occur, and this leads to the experience of consciousness.
Just an illustration, of course.
I at least have a little bit better understanding from the video... how Goff (tried to) put forward the case that consciousness could underlie the mathematics of the universe, or core theory, and that therefore gives me a little bit better grasp of how panpsychist units lets say might work together/coalesce, and therefore perhaps could be part of systems as you and TGN are suggesting. So I'll give you guys that, but beyond that I really don't have much to say. It still doesn't feel very plausible to me, but I will try to keep an open mind
