It's like a game of tennis. — apokrisis

This is a revelation.

...trying to make a table...

Not sure if this will help. Bit messy but it might be what schop has in mind.

1) I am bert1
(assumption)
2) I could have been unenlightened
(target assumption for reductio)
3) bert1 could have been unenlightened
(Substituting "bert1" for "I" from 1,2. Not sure what this move is called in logic (switcheroo?) but it seems valid to me if 1 is a simple statement of identity)
4) NOT bert1 could have been unenlightened
(assumption based on bert1 and Un necessarily being different objects/processes or whatever)
5) bert1 could have been unenlightened AND NOT bert1 could have been unenlightened
(& intro 3,4)
6) Therefore, NOT I could have been unenlightened
(RAA 1,2,3,4,5)

That'll have to do. I'm sure this forum must have a way to set out arguments like this in a clearer format on the page. Am I supposed to use LATEX or something?

... democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time ...

Yeah, this is frequently misquoted. What he actually said was:

... panpsychism is the worst theory of consciousness except for all those other theories that have been tried from time to time ...

Leaving aside the "victim" language which again paints rhetoric as an entirely bad thing: yes in a way, if you enjoy some music, the musician has successfully used some broadly-speaking rhetorical device on you to successfully evoke that reaction in you. — Pfhorrest

Fair enough. If you take the negative connotation out of it. In my ignorance I thought rhetoric and sophistry were more or less the same thing.

Rhetoric is an art, sure. It's not foundational to art generally, though. If I enjoy some music, am I really a victim of rhetoric?

This has probably been pointed out already somewhere in this thread, but the point of starting an argument by stating definitions is to clarify which of multiple possible uses one means by a word. — Pfhorrest

What Pfhorrest said.

The question to hand is "which is to be the master?"; and my answer is, the use is the master of the definition. — Banno

Qualified assent. Dictionaries are compiled by people who pay careful attention to use, at least one hopes. And the definitions they write deserve some respect, and should not be dismissed because one does not perceive or recognise one's own usage in some of the senses listed in the dictionary. I'm talking about 'consciousness' here, obviously.

There must, therefore, be a way of understanding a word that is not given by providing its definition.

Now this seems quite obvious; and yet so many begin their discussion with "let's first define our terms". — Banno

There is no dichotomy between a definition and usage. The way of understanding a word is by understanding how to use it. And one way to understand how to use it is to look in a dictionary at its definition. That is because dictionary definitions are derived from observing usage. Offering a definition, at least in part, is informing people of how a word is intended to be used.

Dictionaries describe usage, no? They're useful when there is confusion over different usages, as in the various senses of 'consciousness'.

Indeed, but they are both smart and interesting. It doesn't bother me so much if a poster has little of interest to say.

Disagreeing with either Banno or Apo quickly leads to the conversation crashing. It's frustrating and annoying. It's interesting watching them interact with each other.

@apokrisis what do you think of Banno's post?

Could you give an example of a property of space other than the mind? — Daniel

Not sure. Extension. Stretchability. Self-movingness.

Now, if you think the mind occupies a space, what would you say its limit is? — Daniel

Not sure. Maybe a mind is the space that a brain occupies.

I am asking this because it seems that everything that occupies a space is limited (i.e., it has a shape/form/limit). — Daniel

Nearly everything yes. But maybe fields occupy all of space, without limit.

I think it's a property of space, so I'd go for 'yes', as space occupies space.

In a healthy democracy, the rule of law one hopes, which one hopes reflects the values of the populace. In any case there are many more kinds of power than military and police. Corporations influence the law rather heavily don't they?

Thus he uses his vast wealth “to build narratives and to pass laws that will require all the other rich people to pay taxes and pay their workers better”, thereby increasing state power at the expense of private property and wealth. — NOS4A2

Isn't 'state power' the only thing that protects people from corporations? Power has to be somewhere. Where do you want it to be?

Descartes expressed his opinion that only humans are conscious, while animals only appeared to be sentient. But modern science has discovered signs of consciousness in almost all animate (self-moving) organisms. Unfortunately, we still have no way to detect consciousness directly, so we rely on inference from behavior. Even primitive bacteria seem to interact with their environment as-if they are sentient beings. But, since inanimate objects have no observable self-propelled behavior, they are presumed to be non-conscious. Therefore, it appears that Life is a necessary precursor to Mind. — Gnomon

Thanks, that's good. Inference from behaviour is an interesting way to resist panpsychism and has some force. This line of thought leads to possible issues of overdetermination. A narrow examination of this argument by analogy with humans would be worth a thread of its own I think.

I don't know why some Panpsychists believe that crystals are conscious. — Gnomon

Indeed, that appears to be the case.

Consequently, my Enformationism thesis assumes that Sentience is not a fixed property of the universe, but instead an emergent evolutionary process. My guess is that It began as something like a mathematical algorithm (information) in the pre-big-bang Singularity, and has gradually complexified over the eons into Energy, Matter, Life & MInd. If so, then we can assume that Self-Consciousness, as found in humans, is the current pinnacle of Evolution. Who knows what comes next --- artificial consciousness? Of course, this is a philosophical hypothesis, not a proven scientific theory. :nerd: — Gnomon

I'd need more information to understand this properly. Do you think consciousness is identical with a certain kind of information processing?

I think the ancient metaphors of Animism were good guesses in pre-scientific times, but we now have a better understanding of how the world works, and how unique Consciousness is to living things, and Self-consciousness to reasoning things. — Gnomon

Cool! I'm clearly out of date. What are the latest findings on which things are conscious?

That is what I call the "New Age" notion of Consciousness — Gnomon

I call it the 'dictionary' notion of consciousness.

In popular usage, this term is taken to mean that even stones and atoms are conscious in the same sense that humans are. But that’s nonsense. In my theory it only means that the potential for emergent consciousness is included in the energy & information that constitutes those elementary Objects. — Gnomon

I part company with you there Gnomon. I think everything is conscious in exactly the same way, according one sense of the word.

↪bert1 ↪Eugen
I'll try again. I get that you folks feel that materialism does not - and will never - offer an explanation of consciousness. But beyond that I'm not getting what your positions actually are - and please don't say it's obvious - or toss out words like "feeling" and "experience". — EricH

I won't do that! The thing Eugen and I are talking about as so obvious (albeit apparently only to us and some other people) is not a theory but the thing that the theories are about. The easy bit should be identifying and agreeing on the phenomenon to be explained (e.g. What actually is a Star?) and the hard bit should be explaining it (Maybe it's a hole in the firmament? Maybe it's the soul of a dead person? Maybe it's a lamp? Maybe it's a ball of burning gas?). Unfortunately with consciousness, isolating exactly what it is we are talking about is also the difficult part, as there is nothing external and public to point at.

I am not rejecting your ideas out of hand. I am not criticizing you personally or attacking you for not being able to express your ideas clearly. These are difficult topics. What I am asking for is some reference. Is there some philosopher and/or some philosophical school of thought out there who you agree with?

I'm a panpsyschist, but I'm an unusual kind of panpsychist. I think most modern panpsychists are micropsychists, that is to say, they don't think, say, that half a sausage with a stick through it has a single consciousness. They think that sub-atomic particles, or perhaps atoms, are conscious. Then maybe some organic chemistry. Then maybe a cell, or something. They have a difficulty in specifying exactly what the conscious units are supposed to be.

I'm a much more radical panpsychist. I think that any arbitrarily defined object whatever is a unified centre of consciousness. So take half a German sausage, three paving stones from Aberdeen and 25% of the Andromeda galaxy, that is a single conscious entity. Exactly what it is conscious of as that entity is almost nothing. I'm not completely wedded to this very odd view, in fact I'd rather like to come up with something less weird, but at the moment I think it is the most likely thing to be true. I need to think more about ways to define conscious objects, and an adaptation of the Integrated Information Theory might be a good way to do that.

Regarding references, a recent panpsychist philosopher who is worth having a look at is Philip Goff. I think my views might be quite close to his. I can't remember if he is a micropsychist or not.

Just for example, here is someone who talks about how Idealism explains consciousness. In this discussion he makes it clear that he does not agree with the Idealists but he gives a clear explanation of their thinking.

I used to be a subjective idealist following Berkeley. I may still be an idealist, but for somewhat different reasons. I certainly think that mind is fundamental. But I also think that spatiality may also be fundamental as well, along with will (the ability to self-move). Not sure exactly. I think substance might have more than one fundamental property which are mutually irreducible to one another, and jointly sufficient for all the phenomena that occur.

https://thepsychedelicscientist.com/2017/02/13/solving-the-hard-problem-with-idealism/

Please read this - it's a quick read - and get back. Does the author give a good explanation of your thoughts? if not, can you supply a link that gives a reasonably accurate summary of your position?

I'm not sure he actually gives his own view. Maybe I missed it. I might be an idealist, but it's more informative to say I'm a panpsychist.

I must admit I don't really know what's going on. I just can't be the case that so many people are just lying or wilfully ignorant or something. Maybe I don't see what they see.

I truly believe you perfectly know what I and bert1 are talking about. — Eugen

I believe EricH. I think the misunderstandings, differing assumptions, differing definitions and perceptions are so deep and difficult to sort out in the philosophy of mind, that people are frequently completely baffled as to what others mean. I used to be like you, what could be more obvious than consciousness? Surely everyone who has reflected on the issue for even a moment will share the same concept as me! It's just not true.

It's a redundancy. Philosophers use 'first person point of view' and 'experience' often enough, and this expression just mixes them. Depending on exact formulations it means either and both. Other synonyms might be subjectivity, sentience, consciousness, the capacity to feel, the capacity to experience. You're right that it doesn't appear in Stanford, but I'm pretty sure any professional philosopher would instantly know what Eugen meant. It least as much as they know what any of the expressions related to consciousness means.

I personally prefer to separate the word 'experience' from these other synonyms, as an experience implies content (that which is experienced) which these others, strictly speaking, do not. It's clearer to abstract consciousness from its content so that we can distinguish different senses of 'consciousness'. Sometimes people mean the capacity to feel abstracted from what is felt. Other times people mean the totality of what is felt, as in 'The realisation entered his consciousness' (crappy example).

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=first+person+experience&t=brave&ia=web&iai=r1-2&page=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B%22v7exp%22%3A%22a%22%2C%22sltexp%22%3A%22b%22%2C%22rgiexp%22%3A%22b%22%7D

The expression is used. The concept is not obscure at all, at least to me. I'm not a great fan of this particular formulation, as it appears to be an amalgam of 'first person point of view' and 'experience'. The former being a grammatical point of view of the narrator in fiction. Experience is necessarily 'first person' in a sense as one always only ever has one's own experiences by definition, so adding 'first person' is redundant.

In conclusion, we can be certain of only one thing - the existence of minds - and we can always doubt the reality of the physical world, materialism. — TheMadFool

This suggests that you might characterise materialism as the belief that the the physical world is real. I don't think this adequately distinguishes materialism from any other monism.

For me, materialism is most accurately understood as a theory of consciousness. I think what people most commonly mean by 'materialism' is the view that consciousness is a latecomer to the universe, and the stuff of the universe (particles, fields, whatever) started out without consciousness, and that consciousness only developed as a result of a very particular set of circumstances happening to occur. I think what people most commonly mean by 'materialism' is pretty much 'emergentism'. But I'm happy to be corrected by those who identify as materialists.

That an interesting thought, but I'm unclear why this is a significant problem for materialism. There are lots of thing that we can doubt, but which we nevertheless continue to believe because we have good reason to. Lacking complete certainty isn't that much of a problem is it? Unless one's project is to put one's philosophy beyond any doubt at all, perhaps.

If you mean emergence is not observed, and observation is the keystone, the fact that nothing consistent with consciousness has ever been observed in rocks suffices to reject pan-psychism. — Kenosha Kid

Every behaviour of a rock is consistent with its being conscious isn't it? The whole of the problem of other minds is predicated on the decoupling of behaviour from consciousness, such that we cannot reliably conclude from behaviour alone whether or not some object or creature is conscious without assuming a theory that couples them.

EDIT: to be clear on my position, I do think that the behaviour of a rock is evidence of its consciousness, but only because I have already assumed panpsychism. I need to show panpsychism by other means before I can conclude that the behaviour of a rock is evidence of its consciousness.

EDIT2: I guess it's one of those awkward situations when what counts as evidence depends on one's theories, definitions and assumptions.

"And consciousness, however small, is an illegitimate birth in
any philosophy that starts without it and yet professes to explain all facts by continuous evolution._______________________________________________________________________ If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some
shape must have been present at the very origins of things." -William James

William James believed in Pan-psychism just as many modern scientists believe in Pan-psychism.

Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote? — turkeyMan

Why do you think consciousness is different from nearly all other properties such that it cannot reasonably be emergent?

In my opinion, panpsychism want to say this: elementary particles have a very small degree of consciousness, but only certain combination of atoms can ''conduct'' consciousness and unite the consciousness of particle with that of another particle forming a stronger consciousness. So, if there's no connectivity inside a rock due to the property of atoms forming that rock, than the rock, as a conscious entity doesn't exist. — Eugen

That's certainly one variety of panpsychism, probably the most popular. One way to determine which systems have 'united' the consciousness of their individual particles is to hijack the IIT theory and say that it is just those systems that integrate information, which is an interesting possibility. (This is a different take on the IIT model, which identifies consciousness with integrated information. The view I just said is the idea that integrated information is not itself consciousness, but it does define which things are conscious individuals, and determines the richness of experience they are capable of.)

For example, a higher goal might be to 'Not feel scared'. One way for racists to stop feeling scared is to kill, or imprison, or put behind a wall, people with black skin. And we could oppose this by saying 'It's bad to do that to black people'. And they could coherently respond, 'No, it's good because it will stop us being scared'. Alternatively we could respond by suggesting that their fear is unfounded, that black people are not actually a source of danger (or not a significant one worth worrying about) and that a better way to deal with fear is to examine actual realistic sources of risk.

But you said everything is concious. Jack's assertion wouldn't make any sense under that definition. — Isaac

It would make sense (because panpsychism is not true or false by definition) but it would happen to be factually wrong (if panpsychism is true) or factually right (if panpsychism is untrue)

Are you sure you are adequately distinguishing theory from definition?

Jack's assertion would only make any sense if there were some measurable difference between being concious and not, but you're saying that everything is concious, therefore there's no way one could exist, but not be concious. — Isaac

Panpsychism does not entail that non-consciousness is incoherent, just that it, in fact, does not occur in the world. For a panpsychist, a non-conscious object would be one that cannot experience. The sentence makes sense. For a panpsychist, there just aren't any of those objects.

Measurability is indeed a problem. If consciousness (sense 1) were measurable then we could settle this matter by doing some experiments. And this also explains the appeal to many philosophers (perhaps Banno is among them) of definitions in terms of measurable behaviour. That would help a great deal in settling the question. When I get jumpy is when philosophers (or anyone) try to insist that definitions that do not involve observable measurement should be discarded. Interestingly, the online Cambridge Dictionary does just that - I couldn't see (when I looked a month or two ago) a definition of 'consciousness' that talked only in terms of subjectivity! Newspeak!

I can't think of any use for such a term. What's more, we're definitely still going to want to differentiate between the level of awareness humans etc demonstrate and that demonstrated by rocks. So we're just going to need a new word to do exactly the job 'conciousness' does presently, whilst at the same time the original word becomes entirely useless. Why not just use the word as it already is? — Isaac

Sure, that is a huge problem, and one which dogs these forums. The problem is that there exist half a dozen or more different senses of the same word. I agree that the medical definition is very useful. And indeed much more useful on a daily basis than the definition philosophers of mind often want to talk about.

This is really interesting. Ask me if I am conscious and I will say, "yes". Ask a zombie if he is conscious and he will either say "no", or not respond. — Wheatley

Yes, that is interesting. I'm not sure what a zombie would say (although speculating about what things would or wouldn't say in a thought experiment is a bit rarefied!). Your take intuitively makes sense though.

In all other potential cases it is impossible to distinguish concious from unconscious - indeed, everything is concious you say. — Isaac

Indeed. That is why philosophers are so exercised about the problem of other minds. Some theorise that nothing is conscious, some that some things are conscious, others that everything is conscious.

So what's the use of the word? — Isaac

To talk about which things we think are conscious, for example. Also to wonder about the experiences of other things. Consider:

John "I wonder what it's like to be a snail."
Jack: "Don't be silly, there's nothing it is like to be a snail. They're not conscious. Their brains aren't big enough to generate experience."

This might help, not sure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo&t=311s

As a panpsychist, I think everything is conscious, including things that speak. But not as a matter of definition. I don't think anything is conscious as a matter of definition, except perhaps me. Panpsychism is not true by definition. That would make it a non-theory.

So perhaps I should have said 'speaking does not entail consciousness by definition'

How on Earth does this constitute an "objection"? The fact that black lives don't matter to some people is the whole point and the entire reason BLM exists. This is like saying that the fact that some people commit murder is an "objection" to the moral principle that you shouldn't murder anyone. — Enai De A Lukal

Sure. But to convince a murderer or racist that their values are wrong, it is not sufficient to present the opposing value. You have to give them a reason why their value does not achieve a higher goal that they have. By drawing attention to a higher goal that we share, then argument becomes relevant, as we can say that valuing black lives achieves that goal more effectively than not valuing black lives because x,y,z.

Speaking does not entail consciousness

What possible use could it be to define conciousness as some property which is completely undetectable? — Isaac

Consciousness is detectable to the person that has it. And they may want to refer to this using a word.