This sort of argument strategy you are using, if it was taken serious by a court or an authority figure could basically make nothing matter in terms of right and wrong. — turkeyMan


Note that I am only trying to demonstrate the problems with precritical thinking about consciousness by showing what such thinking implies.

I don't think my own view implies a nihilism of some sort. Indeed, my view is that all speakers of English (for instance) are profoundly connected just by sharing that language.

The larger idea here is that society is primary, and that man is an especially social animal who is made possible as an interesting individual by his membership in a community.

As far as determinism goes, I don't think a scientific worldview implies philosophical determinism. From what I understand, there is still some controversy on this delicate issue.

Personally I am OK with determinism or its absence.

Even if my actions are all in principle determined, I do not know what I am going to do yet, and I am forced to live with the burden of decision whether or not it is illusory (forgetting for a moment all of the ambiguities here.) — Yellow Horse

People are let off the hook or punished not in unison with the norm all the time. We only have to live with our decisions only if society collectively decides that we have too. Then we have the issue of guilt. I believe people should forgive themselves as soon as possible. On a different note i believe self-doubt is equal to success but that we should avoid self doubt as much as possible because success isn't all that important. I believe there is a God and that sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't bring justice. Grace is a product of a lack of justice. God dwells in darkness and to some extent we are figments of his imagination. What he does to us is a product of his justified depression (not to say we usually benefit from his justified depression). If reality allowed God not to be depressed that would be great but i'm not God, so only time will tell.

That is a fascinating theology that I haven't seen before.

Another view is just that we humans taken together in our environment are God, which would also explain God's justified depression.

People who have held this view liked to think that we (as God) were figuring out how to do better. God (through and as us) would be a work-in-progress, largely through our shared language.

From this perspective, both you and me would be little pieces of God, developing God's self-knowledge through conversations like these.

Personally I'm inclined to think that it's all here in this world.

At the same time, we don't know this world all that well yet. We might not know ourselves that well yet.

Well but your OP talks of "consciousness", not "feeling and awareness", so it depends on how these terms are defined. If by "feeling and awareness" you mean only the ability to detect and respond to external stimuli, then the statement is correct but trivial (as the ability to respond to stimuli is part of the biological definition of life, and therefore of necessity common to all forms of life past or present). If you mean "consciousness" in something more like the sense we typically use in the philosophy of mind, then the statement becomes highly problematic.

That is a fascinating theology that I haven't seen before.

Another view is just that we humans taken together in our environment are God, which would also explain God's justified depression.

People who have held this view liked to think that we (as God) were figuring out how to do better. God (through and as us) would be a work-in-progress, largely through our shared language.

From this perspective, both you and me would be little pieces of God, developing God's self-knowledge through conversations like these.

Personally I'm inclined to think that it's all here in this world.

At the same time, we don't know this world all that well yet. We might not know ourselves that well yet. — Yellow Horse

Are you familiar with Spinoza he was a jew rejected by the jews. He actually resembled the man in Isaiah chapter 53 KJV (not physically attractive at all). Some of his beliefs very much line up with the book of Job, in that we shouldn't assume God or Jesus wants our will but that very often God or Jesus's will is very contrary to what we want. That being said i do think Americans are in general overworked or that was the going trend prior to 6 months ago. That theology i was speaking of is common to some Christians. I am a christian.

Well but your OP talks of "consciousness", not "feeling and awareness", so it depends on how these terms are defined. If by "feeling and awareness" you mean only the ability to detect and respond to external stimuli, then the statement is correct but trivial (as the ability to respond to stimuli is part of the biological definition of life, and therefore of necessity common to all forms of life past or present). If you mean "consciousness" in something more like the sense we typically use in the philosophy of mind, then the statement becomes highly problematic. — Enai De A Lukal

Not really. A fundamental part of Consciousness is feeling pain or feeling happiness or somewhere on that spectrum. A fundamental part of Consciousness is being aware of things around you whether tactile or one of the other 5 senses.

I think you are trying to separate these 3 things as though they don't have a relationship. You are way over simplifying things.

Are you familiar with Spinoza he was a jew rejected by the jews. — turkeyMan

Yes, somewhat, and also with thinkers influenced by Spinoza.

That theology i was speaking of is common to some Christians. I am a christian. — turkeyMan

I was raised Christian. Lots of the thinkers I have read have tried to transform Christianity into something new (more compatible with science and critical thinking, basically.)

This can be charitably described as taking the incarnation more seriously than more traditional Christians take it. (In other words, God is really and only down here with us -- as us.)

I am not trying to proselytize, and the philosophers who think this way will also emphasize that it's metaphorical or symbolic (perhaps also emphasizing that human cognition is largely metaphorical and symbolic.)

Are you familiar with Spinoza he was a jew rejected by the jews. — turkeyMan


Yes, somewhat, and also with thinkers influenced by Spinoza.

That theology i was speaking of is common to some Christians. I am a christian. — turkeyMan


I was raised Christian. Lots of the thinkers I have read have tried to transform Christianity into something new (more compatible with science and critical thinking, basically.)

This can be charitably described as taking the incarnation more seriously than more traditional Christians take it. (In other words, God is really and only down here with us -- as us.)

I am not trying to proselytize, and the philosophers who think this way will also emphasize that it's metaphorical or symbolic (perhaps also emphasizing that human cognition is largely metaphorical and symbolic.) — Yellow Horse

I'm just happy to deal with people open to Pan-psychism. Noah Harrari predicted there would be the rise of a new religion in the next 25 to 50 years based on premises in his books. He has great youtube videos. I don't think i'll be a fan of this new religion but i believe many people will us Pan-psychism as a jumping point into this new religion. I believe Pan-psychism is the bridge between naturalism and supernaturalism. However when i use the phrase supernaturalism in the context of Pan-psychism, there is no difference between Natural things and Super natural things because even miracles would be natural under Pan-psychism. This is one of the things i agree with that Spinoza said. I certainly don't agree with everything Spinoza said. I'm only familiar with popular articles about him. I'm very slowly reading this book ethica. I have a text version from projectgutenberg.com.

To make more definite my 'openness to panpsychism,' I'll emphasize my interest in λόγος (logos), which is to say (roughly) language, which reduces neither to the 'mental' nor the 'physical', while it glues us all together and allows this sentence to somehow outlive me.

You might say that my 'spirituality' is connected to taking the apparently mundane less for granted.

In other words, ordinary life is freaky and mysterious, if we are just philosophically adventurous enough and not too weighed down with the usual worldly burdens.

I've been reading Sartor Resartus, and there's a passage that illustrates what I am talking about, which I will share here for you and anyone else following our chat. This is from a chapter or section called Natural Supernaturalism.

****
Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye as well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of human Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific fact: we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beatified Souls? And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar (poltern), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,—till the scent of the morning air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day? Where now is Alexander of Macedon: does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, remain behind him; or have they all vanished utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that made Night hideous, flitted away?—Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million walking the Earth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished from it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once."

"O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts! These Limbs, whence had we them; this stormy Force; this life-blood with its burning Passion? They are dust and shadow; a Shadow-system gathered round our ME: wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his arm and heart: but warrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed Force, nothing more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a firm substance: fool! the Earth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's? Fantasy herself will not follow them. A little while ago, they were not; a little while, and they are not, their very ashes are not."

"So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end. Generation after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body; and forth issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission APPEARS. What Force and Fire is in each he expends: one grinding in the mill of Industry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science; one madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow:—and then the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly Vesture falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this mysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane; haste stormfully across the astonished Earth; then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage: can the Earth, which is but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have reality and are alive? On the hardest adamant some footprint of us is stamped in; the last Rear of the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence?—O Heaven whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God.

I'll see if that book is available on projectgutenberg.com

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1051/1051-h/1051-h.htm#link2HCH0020

Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote?
Are you open to Pan-psychism? — turkeyMan

I answered the first question. Which question is the poll for?

The quote extends the irreducible complexity argument. One could take it as meaning that any sensitivity to environment (such as in bacteria and elementary particles) is consciousness, but from the name pan-psychism (is this a religion? A lot of people bang on about it here) that is clearly not the kind of consciousness meant. Therefore one has to conclude that the argument is that a conscious multi-celled organism cannot be the distance descendent of a non-conscious single-celled organism, which is patently false.

Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote?
Are you open to Pan-psychism? — turkeyMan


I answered the first question. Which question is the poll for?

The quote extends the irreducible complexity argument. One could take it as meaning that any sensitivity to environment (such as in bacteria and elementary particles) is consciousness, but from the name pan-psychism (is this a religion? A lot of people bang on about it here) that is clearly not the kind of consciousness meant. Therefore one has to conclude that the argument is that a conscious multi-celled organism cannot be the distance descendent of a non-conscious single-celled organism, which is patently false. — Kenosha Kid

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness?

Most or all bacteria has dna.

DNA is more complex than anything in the human body.

So you argument is that bacteria or viruses don't have feeling/awareness? Neither of us can prove either way. At this point in time i don't have enough evidence to walk away from Pan-psychism. Neither of us can claim the other is being irrational because we are both making assumptions about single celled organism that react to stimuli (the 7 traits of things with life). Belief in Pan-psychism is no more irrational than putting our faith in scientists. If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots.

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness? — turkeyMan

This equates "causing awareness" with "having awareness", which is not valid.

If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists. — turkeyMan

That is a choice, not a condition. Everyone is free to understand the maths and results.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots. — turkeyMan

The major differences are a) bacteria are biological, and b) robots have function. Bacteria can have uses, but they have no function. A better comparison would be between bacteria and non-living organic chemicals, since both are at least organic and neither have function, even if they have uses.

Pan-psychism is the assumption that all things have or are part of a consciousness. A valid argument to support that assumption cannot be: well, that's just an assumption.

Yet we are conscious, and rocks are not. If your point is that both emergentism and panpsychism assume some sort of hierarchy, which we might be able to do without, then we agree. — Banno

Hmm, not sure about hierarchy. In the idea that no level of experience is more privileged?

Anyways, it is more like mereological nihilism. Emergentism seems to be something that happens in epistemological contexts. Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place.

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness? — turkeyMan


This equates "causing awareness" with "having awareness", which is not valid.

If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists. — turkeyMan


That is a choice, not a condition. Everyone is free to understand the maths and results.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots. — turkeyMan


The major differences are a) bacteria are biological, and b) robots have function. Bacteria can have uses, but they have no function. A better comparison would be between bacteria and non-living organic chemicals, since both are at least organic and neither have function, even if they have uses.

Pan-psychism is the assumption that all things have or are part of a consciousness. A valid argument to support that assumption cannot be: well, that's just an assumption. — Kenosha Kid

You would have to see my earlier arguments. I can repost them if you like.

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness? — turkeyMan


This equates "causing awareness" with "having awareness", which is not valid.

If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists. — turkeyMan


That is a choice, not a condition. Everyone is free to understand the maths and results.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots. — turkeyMan


The major differences are a) bacteria are biological, and b) robots have function. Bacteria can have uses, but they have no function. A better comparison would be between bacteria and non-living organic chemicals, since both are at least organic and neither have function, even if they have uses.

Pan-psychism is the assumption that all things have or are part of a consciousness. A valid argument to support that assumption cannot be: well, that's just an assumption. — Kenosha Kid

Yet we are conscious, and rocks are not. If your point is that both emergentism and panpsychism assume some sort of hierarchy, which we might be able to do without, then we agree. — Banno


Hmm, not sure about hierarchy. In the idea that no level of experience is more privileged?

Anyways, it is more like mereological nihilism. Emergentism seems to be something that happens in epistemological contexts. Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place.

Consider what schopenhauer1 said and then get back to me. Perhaps i didn't personally explain the OP well enough.

Yes, really, and these things being related (as they obviously are) isn't the same thing as them being synonymous and interchangeable, such that you can swap them out as needed to help your argument. So again, if you are only talking about e.g. the ability to respond to external stimuli, then the proposition is true but trivial/tautologous, but if you are talking about consciousness in a more robust sense, something like the sense we mean in the philosophy of mind, then there's absolutely no reason to think it must have existed "in some shape since the very origin of things" and that it did not emerge at some point like other traits that are lacking in earlier life-forms.

Would you say every particle in the universe is at least slightly Windows 7 ?

You know, I read that twice and still have no idea what your point is.

I mean, just replace "consciousness" in the quote with something else- say, flight, or sight. Is it true that flight or sight were present "at the very origin of things"? Of course not, the earliest organisms could not see nor fly. — Enai De A Lukal

So I am actually in agreement with the OP, although I don't like the terminology. "Consciousness" is what we have, and comes with the ability to think. The ability to think requires stored sensory information (memory, in the broadest sense of the word), and the ability to observe that stored information at will.

Animals are generally not conscious, except the more cognitively advanced ones. I differentiate between consciousness and awareness; awareness being a component of consciousness, but not necessitating the ability to think--only to experience. We can induce a difference in quality of consciousness between species, and also basic awareness that is clearly not conscious in lower level animals and species. I assume there is some level of awareness present in an ant, for example (it does, after all, have a brain). A simple pleasure/pain mechanism does not answer the whole question of how does the ant know whether pleasure is good or pain is bad? On a basic level, that seems to be the fundamental role of awareness: "this is good for me," vs "this is bad for me."

So why wouldn't that variance in levels of awareness go all the way down to the most basic organisms? We see the pattern at the top end, but when we get down to the atomic level, the resemblance to consciousness is entirely gone. But a level of awareness so simple wouldn't resemble consciousness anyway.

But this is not an entire argument, and I doubt a complete, scientifically based argument for "panpsychism" (I hate that nomenclature...) will be made any time soon. I do think there is a metaphysical argument that I can add, though, and it is the same one I use to refute determinism. That is that if causality is constant, and we truly are observers of a mind that is determined by external forces, we would not have self-awareness. We would have awareness of the illusory self, but not of the observer. Yet we do have that awareness, and therefore part of the determination is our own: we are, at least partly, self-determined. This means that both the mind and the physical self exist as they seem to and are connected. Consciousness is the product of material, and also interacts with that material. And since the locus of consciousness is not any one atom, and it seems to be a complex system of material even though it is experienced singularly, I deduce from this that the "observer" is not distinct from one experience to another: but there is no other way to experience being, say, a person, than for it to seem as if you are separate and distinct. The material, after all, is separate and distinct.

Yes, really, and these things being related (as they obviously are) isn't the same thing as them being synonymous and interchangeable, such that you can swap them out as needed to help your argument. So again, if you are only talking about e.g. the ability to respond to external stimuli, then the proposition is true but trivial/tautologous, but if you are talking about consciousness in a more robust sense, something like the sense we mean in the philosophy of mind, then there's absolutely no reason to think it must have existed "in some shape since the very origin of things" and that it did not emerge at some point like other traits that are lacking in earlier life-forms. — Enai De A Lukal

Like it or not we are both making assumptions at this point.

Would you say every particle in the universe is at least slightly Windows 7 ? — dex

Ofcourse Windows 7 was a decent operating system.

You know, I read that twice and still have no idea what your point is. — Banno

Third time's a charm!

Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways. — schopenhauer1

Emergence needs to take place with an observer. Otherwise it is just simples doing what they do (mereolgoical nihilism- arranging themselves in certain ways). Think Kant, or Kant-think.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? — schopenhauer1

Everything else arises in the "where" of an observer. Whence does the observer arise?

It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. — schopenhauer1

So you you might make the move to call the phenomenon of experience a process and thus think you have done something clever. But you haven't. This changes nothing. The formation of sand dunes is also a process.. this one called experience seems just a tad different then all other processes? And what is that difference from other processes?

This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place. — schopenhauer1

Emergence needs to take place with an observer. Otherwise it is just simples doing what they do... — schopenhauer1

Emergentism is the thesis that things doing what they do produces an observer.

So I can't see that anything novel has happened in this argument. SO, yes, nothing has changed.

Emergentism is the thesis that things doing what they do produces an observer. — Banno

Ah yes, this is not odd at all.

Actually, it's quite sensational...

Actually, it's quite sensational... — Banno

If it is all simples doing what they do, what is the new phenomena clutter that is added to this metaphysics?

I'm not advocating any particular answer here. I don't know whence consciousness. The argument here is that panpsychism does not help.

Ofcourse Windows 7 was a decent operating system. — turkeyMan

The plastic bottle to my left is partially Windows 7? I don't think so brah.

If panpsychism logic is true, follows that the components and materials of computer hardware must themselves have desktop interfaces.

The argument here is that panpsychism does not help. — Banno

Putting aside your own "incredulous stare" at the mere idea:
a) emergentism has no observer, just added clutter to the simples.
b) panpscyhism has the observer in the simples