• SolarWind
    207
    Many years ago I had the crazy idea that I am an elementary particle that communicates with its environment. This is a kind of panpsychistic view. This particle is somewhere in my body and is connected to others through forces and entanglement.

    This theory would explain consciousness with two properties:
    - It is indivisible because elementary particles are indivisible.
    - It is a monistic theory.

    As said, a crazy idea, also because particles are transformable, but maybe there is a true core.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    I am not sure that I can answer this very well, but I am going to have a go, because no one else has and it might at least get the ball rolling.

    The idea of the particle could be seen as cells. Perhaps we develop and multiply as cells, with consciousness emerging in this way. The spark of consciousness is connected to others' cells of consciousness, in a vast amoeba of expanding conscious awareness.

    I am afraid that I don't think that I have probably managed to capture a picture of panpsychism which you may have been wishing for. The problem I see is that panpsychism is usually about finding consciousness in the inanimate and even if we try to see ourselves as particles, it is hard to view the human being without any inherent consciousness in the first place. It would almost seem like antipanpsychism.
  • SolarWind
    207
    Well, the
    Teletransportation Paradox is solved with the "crazy idea". You are the one with YOUR particle in your body. If you are beamed it depends where YOUR particle remains. Every particle has its own qualia and is also a "soul".
  • javi2541997
    5.7k

    It is indivisible because elementary particles are indivisible.
    - It is a monistic theory.
    SolarWind

    Well I like your theory and I do not think it is crazy. It is so interesting. It reminds me the Greek philosophers called “atomistcs”. Leucippus was the author and developer of such theory. He shared the same theory you defend about consciousness that it is completely indivisible.
    But let me ask you something. Is consciousness static or is in movement?
  • SolarWind
    207

    Somewhere the quantity of the qualia must come from. Either it is hidden in a soul or in the matter. If one assumes, it is in the matter and in addition in every particle, then every particle must possess the quantity of the qualia. It depends now on where this particle is. If it is in a stone, then it will feel little to nothing. If it is in a living being, then it can feel the state of him.
  • antor
    4
    I see consciousness as something that needs some complexity to work. A system. A single particle doesn't provide basis for enough complexity.
  • Dharmi
    264
    I like your idea, but I am an Idealist. Materiality has never been proven or demonstrated, just claimed. The only thing we have true access to in the world is qualia via our own consciousness.

    That is to say, we've only shown that qualities exist. People have done a parlor trick where they call the qualities "material" and somehow it "proves" materiality. That is not the case.

    The only thing we have access to is qualitative sensory data. That's all.
  • SolarWind
    207

    That is certainly correct, only it is of little use to me to only imagine my food, I will still remain hungry. Sure, the world could exist only in my imagination, but why should I imagine such a tedious world? In my imagination, I would just be happy forever.
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    The only thing we have access to is qualitative sensory data. That's all.Dharmi

    Berkeley's subjective idealism.

    Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is the monistic metaphysical doctrine that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do not exist. Subjective idealism rejects dualism, neutral monism, and materialism; indeed, it is the contrary of eliminative materialism, the doctrine that all or some classes of mental phenomena (such as emotions, beliefs, or desires) do not exist, but are sheer illusions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism
  • Dharmi
    264


    I'm not saying it's in *your* imagination. It's in God's Mind. The Infinite All-Pervading Unoriginate Consciousness. It's partially in your mind, because your mind forms certain qualia of reality, sure, but it's in God's Mind.
  • Dharmi
    264


    Yes, Berkeley is a great philosopher. But I take my philosophy from the Vedic Scriptures primarily, the most important of which are the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads.
  • SolarWind
    207
    I'm not saying it's in *your* imagination. It's in God's Mind. The Infinite All-Pervading Unoriginate Consciousness. It's partially in your mind, because your mind forms certain qualia of reality, sure, but it's in God's Mind.Dharmi

    Actually, I wanted to present a world view without a God. Why do so many people need an almighty boss? Aren't the paradoxes of an omnipotent God enough to refrain from it?
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    I am an Idealist. Materiality has never been proven or demonstrated, just claimed.Dharmi
    True. Yet all the flavors of 'immateriality' are even more unsavory, more ad hoc or preposterous, and demonstrably more maladaptive for surviving & thriving as a natural species than materiality.

    Why do so many people need an almighty boss?SolarWind
    It must be that masochistic slaves desire a master sadist that "loves" them (i.e. BDSM "of the spirit") ... à la junk equation-as-recipe-for-"ambrosia". :smirk:

    I received a telephone call one day at the graduate college at Princeton from Professor Wheeler, in which he said, "Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass" "Why?" "Because, they are all the same electron!"
  • Dharmi
    264
    True. Yet all the flavors of 'immateriality' are even more unsavory, more ad hoc or preposterous, and demonstrably more maladaptive for surviving & thriving as a natural species than materiality.180 Proof

    Not even slightly. Consciousness-only ontology is the most parsimonious, and least ad hoc and preposterous.
  • SolarWind
    207


    Whereby the question arises, why you still accept other consciousnesses than the own one and these should also have a boss (God).
  • Dharmi
    264


    Argument from contingency:

    1) Matter arises from consciousness.
    2) Matter cannot arise from my consciousness, because my consciousness is contingent.
    3) Matter and my consciousness derive from a necessary consciousness.
    C) God is the necessary consciousness that created all contingent consciousnesses.

    I accept consciousnesses of others because I believe all is consciousness.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    [deleted]
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. — Benedictus de Spinoza
    :death: :flower:

    1) Matter arises from consciousness.Dharmi
    :lol:
    Consciousness-only ontology is the most parsimonious, and least ad hoc and preposterous.Dharmi
    Au contrair, O Simplicius! :point:

    Nature-minus-mystery (where 'mystery' is a fiat-of-the-gaps, appeal to ignorance) is clearly more parsimonious and explicable than either nature-plus-Mystery or (your) Mystery-minus-nature.

    Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. — Albert Einstein
    :fire:
  • RogueAI
    2.8k
    Think of it like solipsism with other consciousnesses. The analogy I always like is the jigsaw puzzle: there are individual unique pieces (our individual consciousnesses) and together they make a unified whole (the One Mind that we're all a part of and yes I know how new-agey that sounds, it doesn't make it not true). But there really is just one mind that exists, and "god" is a good label for it.
  • SolarWind
    207
    That makes no sense to me. I don't feel the feelings of some Chinese in far away China and if I don't meet him he is as present for me as life on a distant planet.
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