Neuroscience describes how we as agents produce meaning and identify intention and purpose in other agents. We are driven by stimuli that arouse our emotions that we reason in to feelings, concepts thoughts. — Nickolasgaspar

I'd love for you to expand on this if you have time. How does a brain generate an emotion?

And before p, q and r can be conscious? — Daemon

a,b,c, and d,e,f, and g,h,i, that constitute p, q and r must be conscious. :)

The regress stops when we get to some foundation, like the quantum field, or space, or some such concept. I'm agnostic about exactly what this is.

The usual idea is that consciousness emerges from the non-conscious, e.g. x doing such-and-such (say, modelling its environment, or integrating information, or some other functionalist theory) constitutes x being conscious. Whereas I'm proposing that consciousness is not a function at all but a property, a bit like mass perhaps. So for x to have mass, x must be composed of other things that have mass (I don't know if that's always true with mass, but you get the idea). If you start with things that don't have mass, it doesn't matter how you arrange them or what they do, the result still won't have mass. I'm suggesting consciousness is like that. If this seems rather primitive and uncomplicated, it is.

Because the alternative options are false. Regarding my loss of consciousness under the circumstances you mention, I think what is lost is not consciousness, but identity.

I can't be absolutely sure that the concept is shared. I'm pretty sure the experience isn't shared because when I stub my toe my friend doesn't say ouch.

The concept is shared, not the experience.

To be clear, you have evidence of something. You can't possibly have private evidence of consciousness, how would you know what the word meant if your only evidence of it was private? How would your language community have taught you how to use the word, what it referred to? — Isaac

I think there's a plausible story to be told involving a series of inferences and an abstraction. First, I stub my toe and I feel pain, I might say 'ouch that hurts.' Then my friend stubs their toe and also says 'ouch that hurts.' I don't feel my friend's pain, and they don't feel mine, but I can instinctively infer that they probably feel something roughly similar to what I felt. So we have a common language describing private experiences. I don't really see the problem with that. Then, in a more philosophical mood, when we have have gathered a large number of such experiences, we might reflect on one thing they all have in common, namely that they are all experiences, there is something it is like to have them. That faculty whereby we are able to have experiences, we have a name for, consciousness. I can have a conversation with my friend, and we can discuss philosophy, and while my consciousness is not his consciousness, and while I can't be absolutely certain he isn't an Australian zombie, we can nevertheless both perform this abstraction and reasonably share the concept. I don't see any great problem with this.

What..................? That is a binary position mate...you can use it as an argument for nothing. You are either right or not right, you are either guilty or not guilty.
That is a tautology based on the Logical Absolutes.
There is gradation on what we can be conscious of many reasons and that proves that our physiology and conditions affect the quality of our conscious states.
Again there is no value saying that one can be conscious or not. It offers zero meaningful information to the discussion or your position. — Nickolasgaspar

Yes, I can use it as an argument for something. Consciousness is an unusual concept. The vast majority of concepts do admit of degree. That's why I mentioned the example of baldness. It's a perfectly good concept, but it is not binary. There is no sharp cut-off point between being bald and non-bald. That's the point you're making isn't it? You're saying it's bogus to insist on a binary dichotomy, right? Well, for the vast majority of properties in the world, I completely agree with you. But consciousness is different. The concept does not seem to allow of degree. There is of course, plenty of degree about what we experience once we have got consciousness 'booted up' as it were, to use an emergentist metaphor, but if there is a 'booting up', there has to be a binary transition from non-conscious to conscious. But nature generally lacks such binary transitions, especially when you get the microscope out and look closely. So that presents a problem for the emergentist.

Objective evidence that are accessible to everyone. — Nickolasgaspar

But I have evidence of my consciousness that no one else can have, because no one else is me.

Then not only Panpsychism denies an observable fact of the world, that's emergence (i.e. two explosive molecules when combined produce a substance with the emergent fire extinguishing property) — Nickolasgaspar

When I say panpsychism is a denial of emergentism, that's only with regard to the emergence of consciousness specifically. I'm only talking about the philosophy of mind. Of course, the vast majority of properties in the world are emergent. But consciousness isn't one of them. Consciousness is very unusual like that.

it also makes a medieval claim for a substance being responsible for a phenomenon (like Phlogiston, Miasma, Orgone energy etc). — Nickolasgaspar

I think you might be confusing panpsychism with substance dualism. Panpsychism is typically a monistic view.

yes this is something that you need to demonstrated not assume. — Nickolasgaspar

It isn't assumed. Panpsychism must be true if the alternatives are false.

We can demonstrate the necessary and sufficient role of a functioning brain for thinking agents to interact and be aware of their environment. — Nickolasgaspar

The evidence you are referring to doesn't show what you think it shows. Of course a functioning human brain in a human body is necessary and sufficient for a functioning human being, that's pretty much true by definition. You haven't told me anything interesting about consciousness. This says nothing about the consciousness of, say, a snail, thermostat, or lawnmower. It doesn't tell me why a functioning human brain is conscious, and why, say, an internal combustion engine isn't. Why can't a brain do all the things it does in the dark, without consciousness? We know it doesn't, but why not?

Of course there are objective metrics that allow us to identify conscious states in other agents, from our interactions to necessary brain functions to our ability to decode complex conscious thoughts by watching the fMRI scan of a patient. — Nickolasgaspar

OK, that's good. OK, so we look at an fRMI scan and what? See consciousness there? Or do we infer consciousness? Or what? If we infer it, what is the inference? Can you spell it out?

You are responding to my conscious states....by consciously processing what they have produced. — Nickolasgaspar

I agree with you, I think I am. But the evidence I have for your consciousness is not the same evidence I have for my own consciousness.

well its a reoccurring pattern also observable in our previous interaction, so I am not so sure about that....but you can always falsify my hypothesis. Enjoy your dinner and "news" ..if that is possible by our modern media!. — Nickolasgaspar

It's well known that Banno is a marsupial Hobbit. It is rare he is not having a poached egg on toast with vegemite, or some such abominable snack.

Either the awareness is there or it is not. Consciousness is also present in a dampened state. It is like numbers, a number is either zero or not zero. There is nothing in between. — SolarWind

Yes, that's how it seems to me. Dampened consciousness is still consciousness.

Before x can be conscious, there has to be an unconscious x. — Daemon

That's the emergentist view. My view could perhaps be: before x can be conscious, there has to be a conscious p, q and r.

Again when certain types of anaesthetic are administered we can see a gradual diminution in neuronal activity, corresponding to a greying out of conscious experience. — Daemon

Sure, I agree there is a greying out. It's the transition from they faintest of greys to nothing at all I'm interested in. The faintest of greys is still a state of consciousness, no? There's an experience going on.

The mechanisms responsible for conscious experience are operating, but below the threshold where consciousness begins. We can see this from the outside. It's in the nature of consciousness that a gradual onset would be difficult for the "user" to detect. — Daemon

That's interesting. You are still using the concept pf a threshold though, which suggests a sharp dividing line to me. If the user is not conscious of the gradual onset of consciousness, then it's not a gradual onset is it? It's when they do become conscious of it, that they are conscious of it. Does that moment of realisation happen suddenly?

What's the rationale for that distinction then? — Daemon

I don't know, you'd have to ask a biologist I guess. Prescientific concepts of life might well have included an element of consciousness. But at some point, like got redefined in terms of reproductive ability, taking things from the environment and exploiting them, adapting, responding to stimuli (I'm talking out of my arse here, I don't actually know what the latest biological definition of life is) and that sort of thing. Things you can objectively look for anyway. Presumably this was satisfactory to demarcate the bits of the world they were interested in.

The difference between human brain and other "brains" (computers) is that computers work with algorithms. Inputs inform the algorithm and the algorithm provides "decisions".
In the case of human brain it processes emotion and meaning. A stimuli produces an emotion or affection and our brain(based on previous inputs(experiences),biological setup i.e. homeostasis or our biological hardware i.e. taste buds brain receptors , production of hormones etc) reasons them in to feeling and what they mean for the organism. — Nickolasgaspar

OK, thanks. Why can't all that happen without there being an emotion, meaning or feeling?

Assuming something that you have the burden to prove offers nothing of the above. — Nickolasgaspar

Panpsychism is a conclusion, not an assumption. Consider:

Either panpsychism, emergentism or eliminativism
Not emergentism
Not eliminativism
Therefore, panpsychism.

That's a valid argument. It might be unsound (one or more promises might be false), but that's another conversation. Panpsychism is the conclusion, not an assumption.

Subjectivity is not a mental property. It is a quality we observe in thinking agents because their conscious thoughts are the product of emotions(experiences) reasoned in to feelings and what they mean to them.
Subjectivity is an evaluation term on how people reason and experiences things differently.
It can not exist without biological thinking agents comparing their differences in their experiences
Consciousness doesn't mean subjectivity.
Consciousness is our ability to be conscious of environmental and organic stimuli and produce thoughts with content. Subjective is an abstract concept that described the differences between experiences of different agents.....This is an equivocation fallacy.

Abstract concepts do not exist...they are descriptive labels we use on processes.
This is bad language mode and it is common with claims about consciousness being a "thing" not a process or a property of a process. — Nickolasgaspar

OK, I probably shouldn't have used the word 'subjectivity' as it has confused the issue.

Consciousness is our ability to be conscious of environmental and organic stimuli and produce thoughts with content.

Here you have used the word 'conscious' in your definition of 'consciousness'. You could means several different things, and I'm not sure which one.

Are you denying degrees of consciousness? — Nickolasgaspar

Yes.

So you have never being asleep? light sleep, heavy sleep, sleep with dreams,sleep with environmental stimuli intruding in your dream,nightmare, sleepwalking, drunk, intoxicated,under anesthesia, brain injury(I hope not) concision, head ache, tooth ache, memory issues,Defuse thinking, focus thinking,preoccupied, terribly tired etc et.all those states that affect and even limit the quality of our ability to be conscious of our thoughts,mental abilities and environment. — Nickolasgaspar

These are gradations in what we are conscious of. They are not gradations between being conscious of nothing at all, and being conscious of something.

-No no, all theories of consciousness need to be a narrative of FACTS and a description of observable mechanisms. — Nickolasgaspar

But that's to prejudice the debate. That everything must be a mechanism is itself a theory.

Panpsychism only makes unflasifiable declarations.

Unfalsifiable by an empirical experiment, perhaps, but there are other ways to falsify claims. It's true that it's not a typical scientific hypothesis.

It doesn't describe how conscious states arise and how they gain their mental content.

It would be odd to expect it to. The idea that conscious states arise is emergentism. Panpsychism is typically a denial of emergentism.

How and why mental content is what it is, and what entities have what content and why, these are still open and difficult questions, and I agree panpsychists have not really got many good answers to these yet. I think various functionalist theories could be re-purposed to this end, perhaps.

Its in direct conflict with the establish Scientific Paradigm. Advanced properties are the product of structures with complex structures.

Panpsychists generally do not think consciousness is an advanced property, it's a primitive, simple property, of the kind that could be fundamental.

IT's also in conflict with the null hypothesis. The rejection of correlations between A(existence) and b(ghost of consciousness) until significant observations falsify that rejection should be your default position.

What should be the default position is an interesting question. Arguments could be made either way it seems to me. Panpsychism is ontologically simpler than emergentism, for example. Emergentism says there are two kinds of system in nature: conscious systems and unconscious ones. Panpsychists usually say there is just one, conscious.

Karl Popper's Demarcation principle. The problem is not that it is wrong, its not Even wrong! It can not be falsified, verified or tested. IT can not be used to produce accurate predictions or to use its principles in technical applications.

Some versions of panpsychism do make predictions, but not empirically testable ones. The difficulty is that there is no objective test for the presence of consciousness in systems other than our own self. I know I'm conscious. But I can't empirically verify that you are, or that my friend is. I think you probably are, but that is based on philosophical reasoning, not on empirical investigation. If you are saying that philosophy is not science, I agree with you.

Now ..its just theology in a really vague suit.

It's not theology

Books I've particularly enjoyed:

Tomorrow's Children, edited by Asimov
Farmer Giles of Ham, Tolkien's best work IMO
Assassin's Apprentice and sequels, Robin Hobb. Best fantasy author I've read.
Ronald Dahl's short stories
The Remains Of the Day, Ishiguro
Loud Hands, various autistic authors
The Once and Future King, T H White

I think it's hopeless getting other people to read books, there's something about recommending a book that immediately makes people not want to read it. Askng for recommendations is different. I've never read any of the Russian ones in the OP.

Titus Groan stayed with me a long time. Unique and very evocative.

Only very briefly! He was a guest speaker on the predecessor to this forum, and I asked him a question.

We can see that the process of development of the mechanisms is gradual, but it's in the nature of consciousness that to the user it can only appear to be instantaneous. — Daemon

I agree! When people disagree with me they usually say that consciousness does admit of degree. It's interesting and gratifying that you share my intuition that it doesn't. We're not the only ones by the way. Goff, Antony, and even one or two emergentists agree with us I think, last time I looked.

No no no.....I didn't ask anything about that abstract concept/ quality of subjectivity . I was clear. The claim is that mental properties can emerge non contingent to a biological brain. I didn't demand to demonstrate the subjective content of them. I only want you to point to a phenomenon where Reasoning, Intention,purpose, conscious realization, symbolic thinking, intelligence, pattern recognition, problem solving etc are properties that can be displayed by a brainless agent.
Can you point to a headless organism that can practice the above mental qualities? — Nickolasgaspar

Thank you for the clarification. We were talking at cross-purposes. Indeed, most of these I suppose only occur in brainy animals, perhaps some of them exist in some computer systems, maybe some of them exist in a rudimentary form in unicellular organisms, I don't know for certain. But I take your point. I do not assert that all of these mental capacities, functions, abilities, occur in everything. I only assert that subjectivity does, and that is all I mean by 'consciousness'.

Regarding the other functions you mention, I am interested if you think these could happen without any subjectivity. Could a complex entity, a cybernetic brain or something, could do all these things, but without actually experiencing anything?

Educations plays no role in superstitious beliefs. We know from neuroscience that decision in our brain are taken and they we reason them to our selves. — Nickolasgaspar

Sure, but I don't think that proves anything about panpsychism. Could you spell it out?

We can make a patients hand to jerk by using electrodes in his brain and he will provide a reason why "He did" what he did. — Nickolasgaspar

Sure, brains cause behaviour. What does that imply about panpsychism?

Does "life" admit of degree? — Daemon

Very good question. If you take modern biological definitions, then it would very much appear so, yes. But if you mean by 'life' (as some do) a centre of experience, then I think the answer is 'no'.

First of all can you pls explain to me what do you mean by the phrase "Consciousness doesn't admit of degree"? — Nickolasgaspar

I'll try. I mean there are no intermediate states between x not being conscious at all, and x being conscious. As soon as x has the faintest vaguest shimmer of experience, then x is having an experience, and that meets the definition of consciousness. It doesn't matter how far we turn the volume down on this experience, it's still experience. It has to click off completely to be non-conscious.

Contrast this with other properties, such as being bald, or being a heap (classic often discussed examples). With these we can think of intermediate states which are neither bald or not-bald. Even when we try to arbitrarily sharpen up these concepts, we find that the sharpenings can always be sharpened yet further, until we get down to single jerky quantum changes in an atom.

I know this about the concept of consciousness is by examination of the concept, how we use it in language, and by having conversation like this about it, and reflecting on the concept of vagueness.

Like any other claim or worldview, panpsychism has a burden of proof. Its burden is quite high since it is in direct conflict with the current establish paradigm of Science! — Nickolasgaspar

It does have a burden of proof. But so does every other theory of consciousness. We look at them all and pick the least problematic. I reckon it's panpsychism.

I don't see that it is in direct conflict with any established scientific knowledge. Can you give an example?

An objective verification of mind properties existing independent of biological brains — Nickolasgaspar

Asking for objective verification of subjectivity may be asking for a square circle, an ore of nonexistium, a bucket of pure being.

So the answer is quite simple. What motivates panpsychism is a heuristic called Superstition — Nickolasgaspar

That's not true of modern educated panpsychist philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists.

However, essential questions are not answered. What does panpsychism say about the consciousness of plants? What about subsets of consciousness, e.g. do the two hemispheres of the brain each have their own consciousness? Then there would already be three of me, my two brain hemispheres and both together. — SolarWind

These are very good questions, and difficult for the panpsychist. There is no single answer to any of these questions - panpsychists differ radically. Some might say plants have no unified consciousness as plants, but their constituent particles do. Others (like me) think that any object or entity or whatever, however arbitrarily defined (and so includes plants) is likely a centre of consciousness. However what that object experiences depends on its structure, functions and processes. So the vast majority of conscious things in the universe do not experience anything of any real interest or complexity (by human standards). Perhaps this might be a good place to wheel in the Intergrated Information Theory. While the IIT is not a good theory of consciousness IMO, it fits rather nicely as a possible way to quantify the richness of experience that any given object has. The more information it integrates, the richer its experience. The vast majority of systems integrate very little information. Another way to delineate individuals is to invoke some other functionalist theory. @apokrisis suggests that the ability to model one's environment to make predictions and adapt behaviour accordingly is a hallmark of the conscious. Perhaps that is another way to measure individual identity, and pick out those systems that are conscious in an interesting, perhaps living, way, as opposed to those that are dead but still with the light on, if you see what I mean. Being a mineral sounds depressing to me. Don't really like to think about it. Maybe it's OK if you actually are one.

A consequence of this is that there may be a myriad of selves associated with a single brain, as you point out. It's weird, Jim. But is it false? I don't know.

So in short, I don't know what the relationship between consciousness and identity is. As Searle asked of me when criticising panpsychism, "What are the units supposed to be?" And you raise the same issue. I'm sorry I don't have a very well developed answer for you. It's a central question, perhaps the central question of panpsychism. It's linked to the combination problem - how do experiences sum? Or do they sum at all? The solution to these questions depend perhaps on whether one is a microsphyschist (bottom-up) or macropsychist (top-down). Personally, I lean towards the latter.

wonder, do you put your ideas into practice in real life? Do you attempt to explain the behaviour of inanimate objects in psychological terms? "Why is that stone rolling down the hill?" "Because it wants to". — Daemon

Not at the macro level, no. There's no need, mechanical explanations (even if they are ultimately incomplete) are often what we want.

I'm sincerely struggling to interpret your last post in a rational way, or to find any argument for the existence of mind in molecules. — Daemon

I can offer you an argument more explicitly than I have done so far.

Consciousness does not admit of degree
All process or functions admit of degree
Therefore consciousness cannot be a process or function.

Every emergentist theory of consciousness I have come across associates consciousness with some kind of gradually emergent process or function. I can't improve on that, I can't think of a plausible emergentist theory that finds some binary event in nature and says 'That's where consciousness emerges'. Even if it did, there would still be the question "OK, but why can't that happen without consciousness? What is it about that that necessitates an experience?"

So, if we reject emergentist theories, we're left with either eliminativism (consciousness doesn't exist, at least in the sense given in this argument) or panpsychism (consciousness was around at the start and is likely in everything in some way, if we can make sense of it). Eliminativism is clearly false, therefore we are left with panpsychism.

But when we see them trip over the paving stone, we don't say "it was because the centre of gravity was too far forward, but there must also be a psychological explanation". — Daemon

I'm happy with mechanical explanations with regard to medium sized objects, where those explanations are useful and give us the information we want, as in your example. We don't need to question the exact nature of gravity for the explanation (or description) to be useful. But if we want to know what gravity is, or the nuclear forces, or magnetism, then we don't have mechanistic explanations for these field-like influences, because they do not have internal parts that mesh with each other, we can't break them down further, as far as I know anyway. We just say, well, these forces describe how matter behaves when in their influence. Some physicists might be realist about these forces, and say that they are more than just descriptions of how stuff behaves, I don't know. Anyway, the panpsychist has a problem. What role does consciousness play in the behaviour of matter at this foundational level, if any? Are we going to be epiphenomenalist about the consciousness of an atom or molecule, but not when it comes to humans and other brainy animals? Where exactly does consciousness start being causal? And when is it just a added extra that doesn't do anything (epiphenomenalism)? My talk of the consciousness of non-brainy things is an attempt to make sense of this. I'm trying to be a responsible panpsychist and actually try to tackle these questions. So the panpsychist has to attach consciousness somewhere, and the best fit seems to be at the fundamental level of field forces, it seems to me. (Tononi and Koch attach it to systems that integrate information, which makes them panpsychist, but that doesn't commit them to will in the same way that I am committed to will.) I'm suggesting, for maximum consistency, that consciousness is causal from humans all the way down to atoms and field forces. That's the simpler theoretical approach to take, and that's what I am exploring. The reason I have to do this is because panpsychism must be true in some way or another, because we know (I suggest) that eliminativism and emergentism is false, and these are the only alternatives. Am I entirely comfortable talking about the will of atoms? No, not really. It's a bit weird, I grant you, but necessary. I have to follow the logic. And it's not actually incoherent, at least to my mind.

So back to the paving slab (good example by the way), I agree with you that we are not looking for a psychological explanation in this case. What I'm trying to do is resolve arguments about the causal closure of the physical. The way I do it here, and the way I inject psychological causes in is not at the macro level, but at the level of fields, perhaps. The mechanistic explanation is still correct enough at the macro level, but it is reducible, I suggest, to psychological explanations at the micro level. We have a reduction of the mechanical to the psychological. By analogy, we could look at the behaviour of whole populations. Individuals do what they do because of how they feel. But on aggregate, we can describe their behaviour in quantitative terms perfectly accurately, without ever mentioning their psychological motivations, and forget that psychology was ever a part of the explanation. Nevertheless, the psychology is there in the background driving the macro-level behaviour on aggregate. With the paving slab example, I'm suggesting that psychology makes a difference at the fundamental level. Without consciousness causing things to happen at the micro-level, nothing would happen at the macro level, I suggest. Indeed the macro-level would not exist at all, if we consider that particles are persistent behaviours of fields.

But the ultimate motivation for panpsychism, as @I like sushi has correctly explained, is that it is the result of a struggle with the question of the place of consciousness in nature, and the conclusion is (rightly or wrongly) that it is everywhere, in some sense. For me, this is by process of elimination - it's the only theory of consciousness that doesn't have fatal objections.

As I mentioned, nature has had billions of years on billions of stars to hit on something like that. It happens by chance. Because it can. There isn't a "why". I mean, you're asking "why is there life?". — Daemon

I probably wasn't clear. I'm not disputing chance-driven evolution. I'm not an intelligent design advocate, not do I advocate for teleology on a macro scale in evolution, although I'm not completely ruling it out either. I'm asking why molecules behave they way they do in the same way we might ask why a person behaves the way they do. And normally, with people, we are looking for a psychological explanation. If we give an explanation in terms of neurons firing and muscle movements, we haven't really got the answer we were looking for with human beings. We've just got a fine-grained description of lawlike behaviour. I'm suggesting the same is the case for molecules. We don't need that information in order to predict behaviour and exploit the chemical world, but that doesn't mean that there is no psychological explanation to be had.

If that isn't an explanation, what is missing? — Daemon

Why any of that happens, at all. It's a description of what happens, and as such is useful, if it can be relied upon to repeat in a lawlike way, as presumably it can.

My hunch is there is no solid reason for the panpsychism hypothesis. — Agent Smith

What would qualify as a 'solid reason'?

Indeed, what does motivate panpsychism? — Agent Smith

I thought this was well known? The motivation is bound up in the problem of understanding ‘consciousness’. That there are many different people taking up the idea of panpsychism with various other motivations attached is secondary to the original point of trying to understand consciousness right? — I like sushi

But why should that be necessary? — Daemon

Because the alternatives are impossible, or wildly implausible, namely, that consciousness emerges from the interfunction of severally non-conscious elements.

What's the motivation for your introduction of the psyche, when the process can be explained without it? — Daemon

It can't be explained, just described.

There's not, I submit, any "will" in this scenario either. It looks like will, but the real driver is chance, natural selection. Only organisms equipped with the biochemical machinery that gets them swimming in the right direction will survive. — Daemon

Sure, at the mid-level description you quote there isn't. But when we ask for finer and finer details, we get to forces, and 'no further explanation is possible, we are just describing what happens'. That's where I suggest a further step is possible, and perhaps even necessary, and that is to say that the observed behaviour is the result of will. The idea is that physical explanations of the bacterium's behaviour is, at least, reducible to psychological explanations. And that opens the door to the possibility that the whole bacterium is conscious, and it is doing what it is doing because of how it is feeling as a whole, and the mechanical explanations are, at bottom, just descriptions of behaviour which has psycholgical causes. (Not that that is unproblematic of course, there is still the combination problem for panpsychism. The combination problem is the most common and famous objection to many forms of panpsychism.)

We could make an analogy. We might observe that every Friday, after receiving their pension, old humans go to the shop to buy their groceries. We could conclude from this that there is a physical law that describes this behaviour, no? It successfully predicts observation, with no reference to feeling or consciousness in the pensioners. However we know, because we are similar to pensioners, indeed some of us are pensioners, that feelings absolutely play a totally essential role in this story don't they? The physical law we just invented is horseshit isn't it? We know perfectly well that the pensioners want to eat because they are hungry and they want to stock up on food for the next week and get themselves a nice treat in the process, and maybe chat to each other a bit in the process. We don't do that with atoms and molecules because they are not like us. We don't immediately have an insight into their feelings. I'm suggesting that the physical laws we use to describe behaviour are very useful and accurate when making predictive models and whatnot. But that they are no more than that, and are ultimately made-up.