The Scripture Is False And The Biblical God Is Dead.

[emjay]

And to varying degrees between - again using that word - tantamount and actual, my view on that nowadays tends to be that a full account of the easy questions, would amount to a full explanation of consciousness, to me.

If by full, you mean including how you can get from neural activities to [what appears to be] phenomenal experiences, I must admit I can't see how that would be possible. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose, when it comes time for such a full explanation to come into fruition (hopefully before I die).

That 'full'; no I don't think we can ever answer that.... that part I just have to take as is. But full in the sense of a full explanation of the processes and content of consciousness, full enough to be fully predictive, would be the fullest explanation we (or at least I) could ever dream to have of consciousness, and perfectly satisfactory, to me.

I will say though that occasionally within certain theories, and I'm guessing ast will be one of them, I get some ineffable feeling about the inevitability of qualia if not the mechanism of it... so that's when I vacillate between the aforementioned 'tantamount' and 'actual'. I know such an ineffable feeling would, could, or should not convince anyone else, such as yourself, philosophically but it's good enough for me.

Panpsychism just feels completely at odds with the, let's say process-driven or functional, way I think about consciousness, ie not some quantifiable unit present to different degrees in everything, but something that arises in some way from specific neural activity or processes. Panpsychism also feels like pre paradigm shift thinking for me; harking back to a time when I was happy with purely speculative theories. Granted I don't as yet know the ins and outs of Panpsychism (I'll get to that in your reading list ) but on the face of it I can't see how it can be anything but speculative, and therefore likely unsatisfying to me.

Yes, there's pros and cons to each view. Every view of [the emergence of] consciousness (or what appears to be consciousness) is going to be radical in some way, whichever one ends up being true.

True, they will all be radical in some sense... but basically the more grounding they have in observable reality, the more appealing they are to me. For instance given two theories about consciousness, one purely speculative, and one that looks at the actual structures of the brain etc, the latter will always be more compelling to me.

[GrandizerII]

If by full, you mean including how you can get from neural activities to [what appears to be] phenomenal experiences, I must admit I can't see how that would be possible. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose, when it comes time for such a full explanation to come into fruition (hopefully before I die).

That 'full'; no I don't think we can ever answer that.... that part I just have to take as is. But full in the sense of a full explanation of the processes and content of consciousness, full enough to be fully predictive, would be the fullest explanation we (or at least I) could ever dream to have of consciousness, and perfectly satisfactory, to me.

I will say though that occasionally within certain theories, and I'm guessing ast will be one of them, I get some ineffable feeling about the inevitability of qualia if not the mechanism of it... so that's when I vacillate between the aforementioned 'tantamount' and 'actual'. I know such an ineffable feeling would, could, or should not convince anyone else, such as yourself, philosophically but it's good enough for me.

Yes, there's pros and cons to each view. Every view of [the emergence of] consciousness (or what appears to be consciousness) is going to be radical in some way, whichever one ends up being true.

True, they will all be radical in some sense... but basically the more grounding they have in observable reality, the more appealing they are to me. For instance given two theories about consciousness, one purely speculative, and one that looks at the actual structures of the brain etc, the latter will always be more compelling to me.

Speaking of Mind Chat, since we were talking about pzs earlier in this thread, once you get the chance to watch some episodes, I would suggest as your first episode the one where they interview Sean Carroll. They spend quite some time getting into some of the implications of the pz thought experiment, if you wish to explore these aspects further. Although that's not one of my favourite episodes because the panpsychist dude gets wrecked really badly by Sean Carroll ... so you might like it even more because of that.

[The Grand Nudger]

It'd be a hoot if, when we finally do figure out subjectivity, it's one of the simplest things in the universe and had always been right under our nose. Like, we were actually aware of or acquainted with the explanation but had no idea that observed x was connected to subjectivity. Panpsychism is in the category of explanations where that would be a possible outcome.

The more simply a machine could be constructed that satisfies the conditions of minimal consciousness, the more credible it would seem. A lever, for example, is employing gravity - not producing it. Human brains might also be employing subjectivity, not producing it. We're complex systems, and potentially complex instantiations of phenomenal content...but if there was something like a subjectivity lever, our complexity would lie in it's specificity and breadth, not our subjectivity. This respects the difference between what it's like to be, and what it's like to be human. There are people who think that machine subjectivity presents just such a demonstration, and has..in effect, been under our noses the entire time. I'd say that anyone who thinks machine subjectivity is credible can't dismiss some form of panpsychism out of hand anymore than a mechanical engineer can dismiss gravity out of hand.

All that said, I think panpsychism is projected filth. We'll never learn... will we.... first we do it with river gods, now the whole universe? OFC the thinking thing thinks thinking is awesome and everything would do it if it could. OFC the thinking thing wants to explain existence by reference to thinking. It's a junkie, a genuinely craven thinking addict, so it imagines a junkie universe made out of I stuff and thought-force.

[emjay]

That 'full'; no I don't think we can ever answer that.... that part I just have to take as is. But full in the sense of a full explanation of the processes and content of consciousness, full enough to be fully predictive, would be the fullest explanation we (or at least I) could ever dream to have of consciousness, and perfectly satisfactory, to me.

I will say though that occasionally within certain theories, and I'm guessing ast will be one of them, I get some ineffable feeling about the inevitability of qualia if not the mechanism of it... so that's when I vacillate between the aforementioned 'tantamount' and 'actual'. I know such an ineffable feeling would, could, or should not convince anyone else, such as yourself, philosophically but it's good enough for me.


True, they will all be radical in some sense... but basically the more grounding they have in observable reality, the more appealing they are to me. For instance given two theories about consciousness, one purely speculative, and one that looks at the actual structures of the brain etc, the latter will always be more compelling to me.

Speaking of Mind Chat, since we were talking about pzs earlier in this thread, once you get the chance to watch some episodes, I would suggest as your first episode the one where they interview Sean Carroll. They spend quite some time getting into some of the implications of the pz thought experiment, if you wish to explore these aspects further. Although that's not one of my favourite episodes because the panpsychist dude gets wrecked really badly by Sean Carroll ... so you might like it even more because of that.

On it Can I infer from your last sentence that you're a Panpsychist? And maybe TGN is as well, or at least potentially, given his last post. That's why I love talking to you guys, you're always throwing curveballs ETA: or not... I can't keep up sometimes... I should always wait ten minutes or so after TGN's posted something, just in case any more appears lol

[GrandizerII]

Speaking of Mind Chat, since we were talking about pzs earlier in this thread, once you get the chance to watch some episodes, I would suggest as your first episode the one where they interview Sean Carroll. They spend quite some time getting into some of the implications of the pz thought experiment, if you wish to explore these aspects further. Although that's not one of my favourite episodes because the panpsychist dude gets wrecked really badly by Sean Carroll ... so you might like it even more because of that.

On it Can I infer from your last sentence that you're a Panpsychist? And maybe TGN is as well, or at least potentially, given his last post. That's why I love talking to you guys, you're always throwing curveballs

Not confidently, but I like it. I think, in general, property dualism (which panpsychism is a form of) is more likely than strict physicalism. But I'm correctable on that (though not perhaps easily).

As for TGN, I doubt it, but will let him speak for himself.

[emjay]

On it Can I infer from your last sentence that you're a Panpsychist? And maybe TGN is as well, or at least potentially, given his last post. That's why I love talking to you guys, you're always throwing curveballs

Not confidently, but I like it. I think, in general, property dualism is more likely. But I'm correctable on that.

As for TGN, I doubt it, but will let him speak for himself.

He just did... and then some more lol

Anyways, I'll get on that video now and catch you guys later. Thanks for the chat, it's been good

ETA: Actually maybe later... they're a bit longer than expected

Also, can you be more specific? There's a lot of videos involving that guy Sean Carroll it seems, and they're all several hours long so want to get the right one

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it's flatly wrong, but I respect that a competent argument could be made for it. There are alot of ideas I don't agree with, but my habit is to look for things that are either common to most explanations.. or certainly true even if the explanation they're in is false. You know, what's the kernel of truth that sent someone down a rabbit hole and ultimately compelled them to believe in some incorrect thing? I think the kernel for panpsychism being that phenomenal content is more ubiquitous and can exist much further "down" the line of structural complexity, as we conceive of it. If you can be convinced of that, then it's not difficult to concieve of phenomenal content as belonging to a more fundamental set of interactions than any which occur in a human brain in particular. Can it be taken all the way down to the atomic level, the subatomic..... let's ask the folks at the lhc. See if they've detected any subjectivity fields/particles.

[emjay]

I think it's flatly wrong, but I respect that a competent argument could be made for it. There are alot of ideas I don't agree with, but my habit is to look for things that are either common to most explanations.. or certainly true even if the explanation they're in is false. You know, what's the kernel of truth that sent someone down a rabbit hole and ultimately compelled them to believe in some incorrect thing? I think the kernel for panpsychism being that phenomenal content is more ubiquitous and can exist much further "down" the line of structural complexity, as we conceive of it. If you can be convinced of that, then it's not difficult to concieve of phenomenal content as belonging to a more fundamental set of interactions than any which occur in a human brain in particular. Can it be taken all the way down to the atomic level, the subatomic..... let's ask the folks at the lhc. See if they've detected any subjectivity fields/particles.

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.

[GrandizerII]

I think it's flatly wrong, but I respect that a competent argument could be made for it.  There are alot of ideas I don't agree with, but my habit is to look for things that are either common to most explanations.. or certainly true even if the explanation they're in is false.  You know, what's the kernel of truth that sent someone down a rabbit hole and ultimately compelled them to believe in some incorrect thing?  I think the kernel for panpsychism being that phenomenal content is more ubiquitous and can exist much further "down" the line of structural complexity, as we conceive of it.  If you can be convinced of that, then it's not difficult to concieve of phenomenal content as belonging to a more fundamental set of interactions than any which occur in a human brain in particular.  Can it be taken all the way down to the atomic level, the subatomic..... let's ask the folks at the lhc.  See if they've detected any subjectivity fields/particles.

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.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can combine pan-psychism with ast, and say that the reason that ast consciousness possesses consciousness is that consciousness is a fundamental force of the universe. The ast machine is leveraging the consciousness force..... to evolutionary effect.