What is the problem to which panpsychism is the solution?

I don't want to be told 'the mind body problem'. I want specifics.

It is the consciousness problem, not the mind-body problem. If I believe in materialism, then I assume that I myself am a complex matter entity that has become evolutionary. When I trace my evolution ontogenetically and phylogenetically, I arrive at some crude organic and inorganic stuff. If I understand this stuff in every respect as without consciousness, then I must nevertheless think about how I myself came to have consciousness. After all, it did not fall from the sky. It is philosophically elegant to assume consciousness already in that crude stuff. One must assume so also no sudden inexplicable jumps of consciousness.

This is my area of expertise.

Strawson uses physicalism and materialism interchangeably. The point for him is that his materialism says that the nature of reality is physical, whatever its nature may ultimately be. As for the panpsychism, he thinks that materialists have to consider it a real possibility, on pains that if you reject such a view, you are committed to the view that there is "radical" or "brute" emergence in nature, meaning some wholly new property arises which was not at all apparent in its constituent parts.

But he used to not be a panpsychist, although he always respected this perspective. He would've called himself "an experiential-and-non-experiential monist".

But in all his phases, Strawson has never doubted that experience is the most obvious and certain thing we are acquainted with.

EDIT: I forgot to ask are you the same spirit-salamander from Mainländer's reddit page?

I still do not see what problem it solves.

If the 'problem'is something to do with material entities having conscious states, then how does assuming that material entities have conscious states solve that problem?

It doesn't make sense.

So if materialism is true, then everything must be conscious if anything is?

What possible reason is there to be a materialist given it has such absurd implications? It's perverse. No evidence it is true and plenty that it is false.

I am conscious. If I then assume - just assume - that I am my material body or some part of it - then I must assume that some complex material stuff has conscious states. As I think that no properties can emerge from that which does not have those properties, I must conclude that the simpler stuff from which my material body is made has conscious states. And as my cupboard is made of that same stuff, it has conscious states too. At what point does one revisit the assumption that one's mind is a material thing? Ever? Is there no conclusion too absurd that a materialist will not embrace it?

So if materialism is true, then everything must be conscious if anything is?

What possible reason is there to be a materialist given it has such absurd implications? It's perverse. No evidence it is true and plenty that it is false. — Bartricks

According to Strawson's materialism, it does not follow that things need to be conscious. What follows is that the phenomena we interact with in the world are experience realizing or experience involving. In other words objects have those properties which must interact with experience. This does not mean that objects themselves are conscious.

His panpsychist position is such that he thinks that what he calls "ultimates", whatever they may be - quantum fields or even strings - also realize or involve experience. There is no evidence for his view. But there is no evidence against it.



As to the rest of your reply, no. These aren't conscious states. But every time you move an arm or look at a table or anything else, you interact with these things through experience so the objects and your body are intrinsically suited to interact with it.

Mind you, that's his position. Not mine.

You can accept his "real materialism" while rejecting his "realistic monism". The latter includes panpsychism. The former doesn't.

But then again, you may reject both.

According to Strawson's materialism, it does not follow that things need to be conscious. What follows is that the phenomena we interact with in the world are experience realizing or experience involving. In other words objects have those properties which must interact with experience. This does not mean that objects themselves are conscious. — Manuel

I fail to see how they're not conscious. They'd surely need to be in order to avoid having to posit a new emergent property of consciousness? If conscious states can somehow emerge from that which is not conscious, then his panpsychism is unmotivated. If conscious states cannot emerge from that which is not itself bearing conscious states, then everything would be conscious. Just as you can't get something shaped from combining elements none of which have any shape, so too you can't get consciousness by combining that which is not conscious - that's his case, I take it? So then full-blooded conscious states - not some mysterious we-know-not-what - must be attributed to everything.

There is no evidence for his view. But there is no evidence against it. — Manuel

There is evidence against it: all the evidence in support of immaterialism about the mind. My mind appears to be nothing remotely like a material object. Everything - but everything - our reason tells us about our minds conflicts with the materialist thesis. I don't know of a single good argument for materialism about the mind. I know of about 13 for the immateriality of the mind. Make that 14 if Strawson is correct and a materialist is committed to panpsychism, for panpsychism is manifestly false.

Information is not matter, it has no mass, no energy, no extent. Nonetheless every time you visit a web page, information is driving the physical output of your computer screen and speakers.

Matter/information is the real dualism, and demonstrates how ontologically distinct entities nonetheless interact. Consciousness is a rarefied and complex species of information (or perhaps a species of information in motion, analogous to magnetism as electricity in motion). And the smallest particle is informational as well as material. No need to resort to implausible panpsychism.

I agree that panpsychism is implausible. But it seems that it is not an attempt to deal with the supposed problem of interaction. Rather, it seems - given what I have just read above - that it is motivated by the need to avoid having to suppose that matter which is not conscious can, in some combinations, somehow give rise to consciousness. Just as a material object's shape cannot emerge from that which has no shape, likewise with respect to consciousness. And thus consciousness is absurdly attributed to everything, as if that's a 'solution' (we can't solve philosophical problems by going mad).

What you say about information seems to me to involve a category error. Information is not a substance, but a property of a thing. So, I have some information, but I am not the information.

I agree, however, that there is no problem of interaction. There is no reason to think that radically dissimilar kinds of thing cannot causally interact. And we have powerful prima facie evidence that they do - for my mind seems regularly to be causally interacting with my body, yet my body is not a mind but something else entirely. And even if there was a problem of interaction, it would not imply materialism about the mind, but immaterialism about the sensible world.

They'd surely need to be in order to avoid having to posit a new emergent property of consciousness? — Bartricks

What's at bottom are the ultimates, which involve or realize experience. When these ultimates organize in a certain way, then you get consciousness as you or I would recognize, arising from brains, in a manner that is quite obscure. So for Strawson, you don't need anything else, everything is a configuration of physical stuff. Thus he avoids the emergence problem, it was there all along, just not yet configured in a proper manner.

Just as you can't get something shaped from combining elements none of which have any shape, so too you can't get consciousness by combining that which is not conscious - that's his case, I take it? — Bartricks

That's the idea. It is commonly thought that matter cannot possibly have those properties which we associate with consciousness, such that non experience-involving matter could ever combine to create experience. That's the no-radical emergence thesis.

But for Strawson stuff involves experience at bottom. If this is true, then combining matter in a proper way brings forth consciousness quite naturally.

My mind appears to be nothing remotely like a material object. Everything - but everything - our reason tells us about our minds conflicts with the materialist thesis. — Bartricks

And yet, as Chomsky points out in his very insightful essay The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, this intuition is false. He quotes Joseph Priestley who "culminated" Locke's reflection on thought and matter, as when Locke considers that God could proceed "supperadding" thought to matter.

Priestley says:

"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of sensation and thought, from such as are usually ascribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the same substance, unless we can shew them to be absolutely incompatible with one another.”... this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial system: for we have no more conception how the powers of sensation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material substance..."'

for panpsychism is manifestly false. — Bartricks

I also think it's false, but would state my view less strongly. I take radical emergence for granted, as Chomsky does too.

What's at bottom are the ultimates, which involve or realize experience. — Manuel

But an experience is a conscious state - to be experiencing something is to be in a state of consciousness. Indeed, that's why I can just as well say "I am conscious of a pain" as I can "I am experiencing a pain".

Anyway, the dilemma is this: if 'ultimates' is a name for 'we know not what' then there was no need to be a panpsychist, for consciousness is still emerging from that which is not conscious. On other hand if ultimates are conscious states, then we have everything being conscious, which is absurd and only underlines why the materialist assumption behind all of this needs to be given up (like I say, if one does not give it up at this point, when will one?)

And yet, as Chomsky points out in his very insightful essay The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, this intuition is false. — Manuel

That's question begging. These people 'assume' materialism and so assume at the get-go that any and all intuitions that imply that there exist immaterial things are false.

There's no evidence that our minds are material. None. There's an assumption that materialism is true, that's all. And then there are a lot of philosophers who make this assumption and then note the problems it raises and then try and solve them. Which is a perverse waste of time - these philosophers are cut from the same cloth as those who in ages past would have spilt much ink debating how many angels one can fit on a pinhead.

Rational intuitions are our source of insight into what's what. There's nothing else to appeal to. All of our rational intuitions tell us minds are immaterial, not material. Like I say, I know of 13 arguments for immaterialism about the mind. I don't know of a single one for materialism about the mind. I'm all ears, but I want an argument that appeals to self-evident truths of reason and arrives by means of them at the conclusion that our minds are material without just assuming that they are.

"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. — Manuel

THat's a straw man. THe claim is not that matter cannot have consious states due to conscious states being so very different from other states and thus being incapable of being 'caused' by the material object. No dualist would make such an argument, for they hold that immaterial minds can causally interact with material entities - and so hold that very different things can causally interact.

My reason tells me that it makes no sense to wonder what my mind looks or smells or tastes like. Yet my reason tells me that it does make sense to wonder what something I can see might feel like, or taste like, or smell like. So, my reason is telling me, then, that my mind is not in the business of having properties such as shape, smell, taste, texture. Not, in other words, a material object.

Similarly, my reason tells me - for I am not insane - that it makes no sense to wonder what something I can see or touch 'thinks' like. Hence the manifest implausiblity of panpyschism. Once more, then, my reason is making representations that imply my mind is not a sensible object.

My reason tells me that my mind is indivisible - the very notion of half a mind making not a blind bit of sense. My reason tells me no less surely that all material objects are divisible. Again, then, I am being told that my mind is not a material thing.

And on and on it goes. Note: none of these are arguments from ignorance. That's a myth - teh myth that the only reason anyone was an immaterialist was due to not having done enough science (as if Descartes or Locke or Berkeley would change their positions if they were living today - they would not, as anyone who has read them would know). THey are appeals to rational intuitions.

We could reject all such rational representations as mistaken if they conflicted with some larger body of more powerful rational intuitions. But they don't. What they conflict with is a widespread assumption that materialism is true. That's all.

it is motivated by the need to avoid having to suppose that matter which is not conscious can, in some combinations, somehow give rise to consciousness — Bartricks

My point is, if you treat consciousness as informational, then this problem dissolves: matter can manifestly serve as the substrate of information, and so there is no contradiction in informational consciousness coinciding in a material body.

nformation is not a substance, but a property of a thing. So, I have some information, but I am not the information. — Bartricks

I agree information is not a substance, it is something distinct from material substance. But calling information a property is inapt, it belies the independence of information from matter. "The wizard of Oz" is the same movie, whether it is stored on a film reel, a dvd, a magnetic tape, a hard drive, or an eidetic brain's memory: all completely different physical media. Certainly when we watch and later evaluate the movie, we consider it as its own thing, not as the property of a specific object.

But an experience is a conscious state - to be experiencing something is to be in a state of consciousness — Bartricks

Yes.

But the claim Strawson makes is that phenomena are experience-involving or experience-realizing. This means that the phenomena we interact with realize or involve our experience. An aspect of the object reacts to experience. If they did not, then his panpsychism would fall apart on that alone.

Rational intuitions are our source of insight into what's what. There's nothing else to appeal to. All of our rational intuitions tell us minds are immaterial, not material. — Bartricks

Consciousness arises through complex interactions in the brain. The brain is molded matter. Why would this thing consciousness coming out of brains not be physical too? We'd have an interaction problem - substance dualism - that we can do without.

This imples that physical stuff is much more than what we intuit.

So, my reason is telling me, then, that my mind is not in the business of having properties such as shape, smell, taste, texture. Not, in other words, a material object. — Bartricks

Why aren't tastes, smells, textures and so forth physical things? Why not? Tastes from the tongue, smells from the nose, etc.

I think the problem here is the very common association of materialism with whatever physics says. Or eliminitavism. There's no reason to believe in eliminitavism, or at least, no good reason.

I don't really know what you mean by 'information'. But if something 'possesses' information, then the information is a property of the thing, not a thing itself.

But anyway, this is all by-the-by really. I don't think there is a problem as such in holding that conscious states are states of a material object. Anything is possible. I just hold that we don't have any evidence that conscious states are states of material objects; all the evidence we have is that conscious states are states of immaterial objects.

I also have no problem with emergent properties. So I don't buy the problem that Strawson is invoking panpyschism to solve. When it comes to a thing's properties, one has ultimately to say that it just has them. So I don't see a problem in saying that complex objects could have properties of a different sort from the simpler objects from which they are constructed. Explanations are nice, but they're not always needed and not everything can stand in need of one else nothing could be explained. (And I don't think syaing 'everything is conscious' is really an explanation of how my brain is conscious; it's sort of like me asking 'how does this computer work?' and getting the answer 'all computers work').

I just think there's no evidence that minds are material things - and thus no evidence that consciousness is a property of something material - and stacks and stacks that they're immaterial things.

As I see it, what contemporary philosophers of mind are trying to do is show how it is 'possible' for consciousness to be compatible with materialism. But that's not evidence that our minds are material and that consciousness is in fact a property of any material thing. I'm personally perfectly happy to grant the possibility - I just think there's no evidence for it, and a load against.

My body is capable of being 100ft tall. But it isn't. I have no evidence I am 100ft tall and plenty that I am not. SImilarly, it is possible that my mind could be a material thing, for I think anything is possible. But I have no evidence that my mind is a materail thing and a lot that it isn't.

I don't have a sophisticated understanding of what information is. That which can be encoded and transmitted, I suppose. Which rules out all the stuff: you can't send a dog in a message.

.I just think there's no evidence that minds are material things - and thus no evidence that consciousness is a property of something material - and stacks and stacks that they're immaterial things. — Bartricks

Damage the brain, damage the mind. Destroy the brain, destroy the mind. Alter the brain, with alcohol or LSD for instance, alter the mind.

But the claim Strawson makes is that phenomena are experience-involving or experience-realizing. This means that the phenomena we interact with realize or involve our experience. An aspect of the object reacts to experience. If they did not, then his panpsychism would fall apart on that alone. — Manuel

I don't see the relevance of the distinction. For anything to be experience-involving, an experience would need to be realized, surely. And it is that - the realization of a conscious state - by material substances that (supposedly) needs to be explained. And thus to explain it without supposing that conscious states can just emerge from ingredients that are themselves not conscious we would have to suppose that everything material 'realizes' conscious states.

Consciousness arises through complex interactions in the brain. The brain is molded matter. Why would this thing consciousness coming out of brains not be physical too? We'd have an interaction problem - substance dualism - that we can do without. — Manuel

Flagrantly question begging. No it doesn't. Consciousness is a property of immaterial entities called 'minds'. There is no - no - evidence that such entities are material, as I keep saying. There is just a widespread assumption that everything is material. (If you know of an argument that appeals to self-evident truths of reason and arrives thereby at the conclusion that minds are material without helping itself to a materialist assumption, I'll accept that there is some evidence that minds are material, but not otherwise).

Why aren't tastes, smells, textures and so forth physical things? Why not? Tastes from the tongue, smells from the nose, etc. — Manuel

Missed the point. The point is that most of us have rational intuitions that represent our minds not to be in the business of having shapes, textures, and so forth. As material objects, by their very nature, are in the business of having those kinds of property, our minds are being represented by our reason to be immaterial, not material.

You could just insist that the representation is mistaken - and it might be, of course - but you'd need countervailing evidence, not just an assumption.

Damage the brain, damage the mind. Destroy the brain, destroy the mind. Alter the brain, with alcohol or LSD for instance, alter the mind. — hypericin

So, your reasoning seems to be that if A affects B, then A 'is' B. Otherwise I don't see how you get from 'damage to the brain damages the mind" to 'the mind is the brain'.

Yet that principle is clearly false: if A affects B, that does not entail that A 'is' B. I mean, by that logic my mind is alcohol. Drinking alcohol affects my mind. Therefore my mind is alcohol! Damaging my brain affects my mind, thus my mind is my brain. Bad reasoning, Sir!

What you are saying is affecting my mind. So it turns out I am you! And you are me. Who'd have thought?

As for your claim that if the brain is destroyed then so too is the mind - a claim I think is not true and begs the question - the reasoning is once more faulty. If I destroy a two storey building's first storey, I also destroy its second, for no second storey can exist absent a first. By your logic that means the second storey is the first storey.

Bad reasoning, Sir!! Yet it is reasoning of the above kind that is all I have so far received by way of 'evidence' that the mind is the brain. It's all I ever get. I am told affecting the brain affects the mind and that, people seem to suppose, is somehow a demonstration of materialism about the mind. Odd. It is no such thing, it is just a demonstration of the way people can be blind to how bad their reasoning is when they are in the grips of a dogma.

I think we can distinguish between two distinct 'problems' where materialism and consciousness are concerned. The first is the fact that material objects do not appear to be in the business of having conscious states. It is prima facie implausible that minds have shapes, or thoughts locations.

Panpyschism is clearly no solution to that problem. For supposing that all material entities have conscious properties does precisely nothing to overcome the intuition that no material thing has them.

The other problem is the problem of getting out what you haven't put in. If conscious properties are thought to emerge from material objects, then one might think that this cannot be unless the material objects already have such properties, for otherwise have a kind of alchemy.

Panpyschism would solve that problem - if problem it be - becuase now everything has conscious properties and so nothing has been gotten out that wasn't there in the first place. It solves it at the cost of insanity, of course: for it is plainly absurd to suppose that every material thing has conscious states.

But note that this would presumably apply to all manner of other properties associated with having consciousness, such as the property of being morally responsible. I mean, that property - the property of being deserving of blame and praise - can surely no more 'emerge' than consciousness can. So it would seem that a well motivated and consistent panpyschist will have to hold that everything is morally responsible. When Basic Fawlty thrashed his car for breaking down, he was giving it its just deserts, it would seem.

I dunno. The posts are getting longer and longer, and the argument is losing focus; argument trend goes the way of talking about unknown facts, and how they relate to each other in a way that is unknown to humans.

This lends itself to long, involved, serious, esoteric, futile discussions.

Information is not matter, it has no mass, no energy, no extent. Nonetheless every time you visit a web page, information is driving the physical output of your computer screen and speakers. — hypericin

I don’t see how information does not ‘have’ energy in the same sense that fields ‘have’ energy (as stated in the OP). It seems to me that information at this level IS energy - which is why Bartricks suggests that information is a ‘property’ of matter.

But it’s like you’re discussing information on different awareness levels. For Bartricks, information would be an immaterial property of (the computer as) a physical system in motion. But I understand information as the distribution of attention and effort that ‘drives’ the physical output or ongoing state of the (computer) system. Which is kind of the same thing, just described differently.

Panpyschism would solve that problem - if problem it be - becuase now everything has conscious properties and so nothing has been gotten out that wasn't there in the first place. It solves it at the cost of insanity, of course: for it is plainly absurd to suppose that every material thing has conscious states. — Bartricks

It looks like you’re equating ‘conscious properties’ with ‘conscious states’. The problem I have with this is that static material objects are not the same as physical systems in motion. The main difference is in how energy flows through the system. For an object to have a conscious state is impossible, but it is not so much of stretch for a physical system in motion to imply what we refer to as a ‘conscious state’. Bear with me here - I’m not saying this is evidence of a conscious state, only the possibility.

So, what is a conscious state, and how do we ascertain that one exists? And how is this different from the existence of conscious properties? I think this needs to be clarified, because there is a difference between properties and states.

Property: an attribute, quality, or characteristic of something.

State: 1. the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.
2. a physical condition as regards internal or molecular form or structure.

Not "A affects B". Rather, changes to A result in changes to B. When this relationship is observed, it provides evidence that either:

* A is B
or
* B is causally connected to A

But if the mind is causally connected to the brain, then by virtue of its causal interaction, it too must be material. But if it is material, then what else can it be, but the brain? There is no room in the skull for anything else. Therefore, A is B, the mind is the brain.

Not "A affects B". Rather, changes to A result in changes to B. When this relationship is observed, it provides evidence that either:

* A is B
or
* B is causally connected to A

But if the mind is causally connected to the brain, then by virtue of its causal interaction, it too must be material. But if it is material, then what else can it be, but the brain? There is no room in the skull for anything else. Therefore, A is B, the mind is the brain. — hypericin

This is an observation of A and B in isolation. Even if the mind is causally connected to the brain, it need not be fully contained within the skull. Therefore, the fact that changes to A result in changes to B does not necessarily mean that A is B. The mind may be probabilistically locatable in the skull, but is nevertheless NOT identical to the brain.

There are arguments against the existence of mind. I say the brain supports what is called mind. As to matter, it could not create itself; therefore, it emanated from an immaterial existent. In the pre-universe, it may be argued that the first existent was immaterial space with a capacity for becoming actual. Unlike some physicists who say space is made of something, it might not be. Other than immaterial space, all other existents may be matter or matter derived.

I still do not see what problem it solves.

If the 'problem'is something to do with material entities having conscious states, then how does assuming that material entities have conscious states solve that problem?

It doesn't make sense. — Bartricks

I can't explain it much better than that. Maybe I can bring the problem closer to you by asking you when you believe that consciousness in the sense of feeling or perception or mood experience appeared for the first time in the evolutionary history or natural history of the world.

I take it that you assume such a unique moment of the emergence of consciousness experience. Not to forget, we remain within the framework of materialism.

A non-panpsychistic materialist must think: There was nothing comparable with feelings, drives, moods and perceptions (by these I understand consciousness) in natural history for a very long time, and then suddenly such things appeared.

Anything that appears suddenly and erratically is in itself a problem. But between the non-conscious and the conscious there seems to be an infinite gap.

But because we assume materialism as a precondition, the appearance of consciousness cannot have fallen from "the sky".

Basically, it's simple logic. If the materialist defines matter as in every sense lacking subjective experience and as the only thing existing, but believes that at least with us humans there is subjective experience in whatever sense, then we have a problem.

As for the panpsychism, he thinks that materialists have to consider it a real possibility, on pains that if you reject such a view, you are committed to the view that there is "radical" or "brute" emergence in nature, meaning some wholly new property arises which was not at all apparent in its constituent parts. — Manuel

This is exactly what I want to say: "radical" or "brute" emergence in nature is prima facie a theoretical metaphysical or epistemic problem. Although one can simply accept such things, one must nevertheless acknowledge their mysteriousness, that is, their problematic nature.

EDIT: I forgot to ask are you the same spirit-salamander from Mainländer's reddit page? — Manuel

Yes, I am the same

The first is the fact that material objects do not appear to be in the business of having conscious states. It is prima facie implausible that minds have shapes, or thoughts locations. — Bartricks

To the first sentence. In terms of cultural history, people were initially animists. Therefore, one cannot say that panpsychism is counter-intuitive. Material objects indeed appeared to be in business of having consciousness.

To the second sentence:

I must look at material objects as I look at other people. I assume that another person also has conscious states like me. However, I cannot really make out a place of consciousness, but I assume that the other has consciousness. I can do the same with material objects. I assume consciousness to them, although I cannot find a direct location for it.

For supposing that all material entities have conscious properties does precisely nothing to overcome the intuition that no material thing has them. — Bartricks

Panpsychists want a change in our intuition. It is not impossible that something like this can happen culturally.

The other problem is the problem of getting out what you haven't put in. If conscious properties are thought to emerge from material objects, then one might think that this cannot be unless the material objects already have such properties, for otherwise have a kind of alchemy.

Panpyschism would solve that problem - if problem it be - becuase now everything has conscious properties and so nothing has been gotten out that wasn't there in the first place. — Bartricks

That is the point I am making in my response to you above.

It solves it at the cost of insanity, of course: for it is plainly absurd to suppose that every material thing has conscious states. — Bartricks

One might say that this is just an attitude or stance. This is perfectly fine. But your mindset does not have to be unchangeable within you.

But note that this would presumably apply to all manner of other properties associated with having consciousness, such as the property of being morally responsible. I mean, that property - the property of being deserving of blame and praise - can surely no more 'emerge' than consciousness can. So it would seem that a well motivated and consistent panpyschist will have to hold that everything is morally responsible. When Basic Fawlty thrashed his car for breaking down, he was giving it its just deserts, it would seem. — Bartricks

The panpsychist would say that consciousness has more to do with experience. Intentionality, which makes the feeling of moral responsibility possible, would be something which comes along somewhat later. Your remarks here are somewhat unfair and uncharitable to panpsychism. The panpsychists see it more differentiated.

Yes. It is mysterious and such radical emergence is usually ridiculed by many modern philosophers. They refer to it as "magical emergence". It was taken for granted in the scientific revolution. But for whatever reason, today some people don't like the idea that some aspects of nature simply don't make sense to us.

Yes, I am the same — spirit-salamander

:clap:

Hey man you've done some amazing work on that thread really really good stuff. It's been very helpful and interesting. Many thanks. :)

Fair enough.

I lost some of the focus of thread, which was presenting Strawson's argument.

Anything that appears suddenly and erratically is in itself a problem. But between the non-conscious and the conscious there seems to be an infinite gap. — spirit-salamander

Between the non-living and the living there also seems to be an infinite gap. Panpsychism is a modern vitalism.

How would a panpsychist explain the incredibe fragility of our consciousness? All you have to do is apply a moderate blow to the head, or administer an anaesthetic, and consciousness disappears utterly. And yet these brain configurations are infinitely closer to conscious ones than a brain in a blender, or a brick. It is apparent that consciousness requires not just stuff, but stuff in a excruciatingly exact configuration.