That the substance that the universe is composed of is essentially consciousness? — Watchmaker

That's what I think, yes. Not all panpsychists think that though.

Where did "knowing" come into play? Something had to initially know how to arrange atoms and chemicals in way to give rise to awareness. — Watchmaker

I don't understand what you mean, or what that's got to do with panpsychism. Panpsychists do not usually explain consciousness in functional, chemical or any such terms, although some do. Even those who do would say there is no prior knowing, knowing is these processes, not a pre-existing condition of them.

Wouldn't there have had to be something like a mind that knew how to arrange these ingredients in such a away to give rise to awareness? — Watchmaker

I think there is a point in the emergence of consciousness where a mind is needed to create a cream cake. cream cakes and cars or guns cant evolve they are invented by conscious minds but I think it's THIS intuitive logic that human consciousness 'projects' from the origin of cream cakes onto the origin of the Universe. The possibility that the origin of the Universe and the origin of consciousness was down to random chance is at least not impossible and is therefore possible and we might eventually be able to demonstrate that it's highly likely, on the way to knowing that it really did happen that way. Knowledge is not fundamental, I agree. Knowledge is acquired by consciousness but I don't see why knowledge has to exist before random happenstance.

Quarks and electrons already contain the seeds of consciousness. They tend to like one another or hate one another. Already at that level there is the dual at work.

I find it interesting that information is suggested as being fundamental. In Computing, information is a composite of the labels data and meaning. Raw data has no meaning. 25 is raw data, 25 apples, is data with meaning, and is therefore information. Data is unlabeled, so how can information be fundamental if it is made up of 'parts.'
Perhaps 'data' is fundamental and 'meaning' is fundamental.

I think the problem is simply 'the current limiting factors of human consciousness.' Current human consciousness is quite limited in its scope.
I don't think that the natural evolution of human consciousness has yet given us any ability to decipher the origin story of our Universe. I think this is one of the main reasons why most people take the very easiest and laziest of roads possible to scratch that annoying itch to know, they become theists.

Evolution has not stopped, It continues. Give the humans another few million years. The dinos had somewhere between 77 million and 165 million years according to my google search, and they never even tamed fire! Push for merging humans with technology to extend lifespan. Push for global unity of our species. Push for developing technology that will allow us to leave this planetary nest as a prudent policy of further protection against the possibility of our extinction.
This is only my very humble opinion of course, regarding the ways in which YOU personally could be MOST useful to OUR human species, in your and my, currently, very short lifespan.

I don't think that the natural evolution of human consciousness has yet given us any ability to decipher the origin story of our Universe. I think this is one of the main reasons why most people take the very easiest and laziest of roads possible to scratch that annoying itch to know, they become theists. — universeness

That's not true. If the gap is closed no more then no more gods of the gaps are needed. Then the gods are true gods, not serving to fill gaps, say between inflation and time zero.

Push for merging humans with technology to extend lifespan. Push for global unity of our species. Push for developing technology that will allow us to leave this planetary nest as a prudent policy of further protection against the possibility of our extinction. — universeness

These pushes are the causes of our future extinction. We could prevent that extinction by stop pushing. What if we arrive on another nest? An Earth-like planet. Then the pushing starts all over?

That's not true. If the gap is closed no more then no more gods of the gaps are needed. Then the gods are true gods, not serving to fill gaps, say between inflation and time zero. — EugeneW

There are more gaps in our knowledge than there are bits filled in.
Newtons I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. This was true when he is supposed to have said it and it's still true today.

These pushes are the causes of our future extinction. We could prevent that extinction by stop pushing. What if we arrive on another nest? An Earth-like planet. Then the pushing starts all over? — EugeneW

Don't be such a big fearty, ya big fearty! :rofl:
Oh, laughing at my own joke attempts is never a good thing :scream:

Are we talking reality's atoms, or reality's degrees of freedom? ... and thus its invariances ... and thus its structural dichotomisation into its global spacetime invariances (the structure of its Lorentz, Poincare and even de Sitter symmetry groups) and its local gauge invariances (starting with the Standard Model's SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1))? — apokrisis

You got the basic symmetry wrong. It's a SU(3)XSU(3)XSU(1) symmetry.

The quantum collapse issue highlights that fact. Yet as I have argued, it also shows us exactly where the epistemic incision must be made. — apokrisis

The epistemic cut can be made wherever you like.

Panpsychism is the pathological metaphysics that arises when you try to reduce all existence to materialism, and wind up including "consciousness" as "another face of matter" — apokrisis

Why you add "pathological"? It's the material metaphysics that's pathological.

Quarks and electrons already contain the seeds of consciousness. They tend to like one another or hate one another. Already at that level there is the dual at work.


A dual duel?

I would like to understand what Joshs said here:

it reifies it by installing the dualism within each bit of objective reality.-Joshs

Does your statement above coincide in any way with what Joshs stated? His statement was very condense and it resonated like a riddle.

If it were true random happenstance, then no, I don't see why there would need to be a mind either. It just happened. Rationality sprang from irrational forces. Minds that seek truth emerged from forces that know nothing of truth.

Rationality sprang from irrational forces. Minds that seek truth emerged from forces that know nothing of truth — Watchmaker

I agree and think that what you describe above must be quite possible. I find it much more plausible than god or even g*d.
It's the basis of the chaos...combination....assembly....order...entropy....disassembly....chaos....bounce suggested by Roger Penrose. At least that's my very basic attempt at a summary of the stages he describes.

A dual duel? — Watchmaker

Yes! :smile: Duelle and Duette dueling already there. Love and hate. Just look at the comment exchanges here on TPF...

Don't be such a big fearty, ya big fearty! :rofl: — universeness

A fearty farty forty! What fear?

Minds that seek truth emerged from forces that know nothing of truth. — Watchmaker

I dont agree. Understanding is not rational. The conscious minds appearing in the course of evolution know already bout the truth. Ratio alone can't explain the truth.

A fearty farty forty! What fear? — EugeneW

The primal fear which I am convinced is the substrate of all theism that you display in your typings.
I push our species to boldy go where no man has gone before. You advocate we stay on Earth and huddle together back in our caves with artist impressions of god(s) talisman's hanging around our necks, for protection against the noises outside the caves at night.
Okay, I know I am caricaturing your viewpoints a little but I have become very used to the windup aspect of debate. Such a tendency can annoy others but can also be fun for those who are like-minded to me.

Could you rephrase that please?

A would still equal A in any possible world that could have arisen by random chance.

A would still equal A in any possible world that could have arisen by random chance. — Watchmaker

An example of what you mean would help. If algebraic A is instantiated to 'the existence of gravity' then yes, I agree. If A is assigned 'consciousness' then perhaps not. I just choose these two examples as an attempt to illustrate my point.

The primal fear which I am convinced is the substrate of all theism that you display in your typings — universeness

But fear of what? We can boldly push and go where no man has gone before, but space being the final frontier "but it's made in a Hollywood basement", as you know the song goes.

Could you rephrase that please? — Watchmaker

If consciousness, the soul, the mental, is already present at the fundaments then every attempt to rationally explain it is doomed.

Let me think about that and get back with you. I appreciate your time.

This makes sense in that Being grounds Becoming in the Aristotelean scheme. So that which stably exists becomes the stuff which also can stand under the change. — apokrisis

Stability of form and structure is an illusion. It is a product of our minds' frequency relative to the frequency of what is being observed. Change is relative and minds change relative to every other process. The rate at which they change, or process external information, is relative to the speed or frequency at which the external world changes. Some changes happen very fast and some very slow. Those that happen fast appear as "non-physical" processes, while those that happen very slow appear as stable "physical" objects.

If reductionism is faulty then how is it that we understand the things we have invented as products of smaller parts? How can I repair your computer by replacing a part, not the whole computer, or by the process of elimination by eliminating the causes that are not at fault to get at the cause that is the fault? You only arrive at the right answer after making all possible mistakes.

If not reductionism, does that mean we live in a world that is only made up of Earth, Wind, Air and Fire? In a non-reductionist world, there would be uncountable substances and forms - none of which would be reducible to anything else. Energy and matter would be different substances and forms. Plastic, metal, wood, electricity, light, sound, etc., would all be different substances and forms without being reduced to smaller processes. It seems to me that a non-reductionist view would be the view of the naive realist - that things exist as they are experienced without being reduced to things that we don't see, or can observe.

It seems to me that a lot of people are saying the same thing, but using different terms, mostly in an effort to make the simple sound complicated as a way of "chest-beating" for social status.

That the substance that the universe is composed of is essentially consciousness? — Watchmaker


That's what I think, yes. — bert1

I wonder what the motivation is? I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the mechanisms for consciousness are in our brains, we can switch them off and on. I see that some things are not conscious, rocks, dead people or dogs. I think bacteria for example aren't conscious (because we can explain their behaviour through non-conscious processes), but they do have something which is a prerequisite for consciousness, they are individuals, separated from their environment.

This stuff is surely super-important?! Whether we ourselves and other items are conscious or not really matters to us.

So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious.

So, if you think of Matter as a tangible form of incorporeal Spirit, that might work — Gnomon
I think that's a reification. — Wayfarer

Of course. But the suggestion was intended as a change of perspective, in order to adapt to a challenge to someone's religious worldview. From my own science-based philosophical worldview , I have concluded that what the ancients called "Spirit" (invisible agency), is what we now call "Energy" (invisible causation). The difference is that, thanks to Einstein, we can now equate invisible Energy & tangible Matter via the moderation of mathematical Mass. (E=MC^2)

With that in mind, I could re-word my tongue-in-cheek proposal as : "think of Matter as a tangible form of intangible Energy". That's not the fallacy of Reification, but the realization that Energy is a mental model constructed to explain physical changes, that would otherwise seem mysterious. Energy may seem less mysterious (spiritual), if you view it as an active form of Generic Information, which I also call "EnFormAction", to denote its relationship to mundane Energy .


Why are most forms of energy invisible to the naked eyes :
"There is no manifestation of energy that is visible. Even light itself is not visible."
"Mostly because energy is a model we invented to make our physics easier. It doesn't physicially exist, it's just something we created to show how things behave"
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-most-forms-of-energy-invisible-to-the-naked-eyes-while-we-can-see-heat-as-fire-for-example-What-make-some-forms-seen-and-other-not.
Note -- we see the effects of Energy inputs as the physical changes in Matter


Information is Generic in the sense of generating all forms from a formless pool of possibility : the Platonic Forms.
BothAnd Blog, post 33

EnFormAction :
"En-" within : referring to essential changes of state
"Form-" to mold or give shape to : it's the structure of a thing that makes it what it is.
"Action-" causation : the suffix “-ation” denotes the product or result of an action.
* So the cosmic force of EnFormAction is the Cause of all Things in the world and of all Actions or changes of state. In physical terms, it is both the Energy and the Material, plus the Mental concept of things. It is the creative impulse of evolution.*
* Plato’s "Form"s were described, not as physical things, but as the idea or concept or design of things. The conceptual structure of a thing can be expressed as geometric ratios & relationships which allow matter to take-on a specific shape. So, in a sense, the ideal Form of a real Thing is the mathematical recipe for transforming its potential into actual.
BothAnd Blog, post 33

But fear of what? We can boldly push and go where no man has gone before, but space being the final frontier "but it's made in a Hollywood basement", as you know the song goes — EugeneW

Primal fear of the unknown/misunderstood/things which seem much bigger and stronger than you.

Attempt an imaginary mindwalk for a moment, in the shoes/or lack of shoes of a very early ancestor of our species. I imagine language/communication with our fellows would mostly be grunts and hand/arm gesticulations at that time.
Consider being one of the first consciousnesses to comprehend that the sun seemed to rise up from one side of the sky, move across the sky and fall down the other side, and then all is dark and you can barely see ten feet in any direction and all you hear is a terrifying cacophony of roars, screeches, hisses etc.
If you can do that then you will begin to understand primal fear/terror.
How happy you will be to see the light rise again and feel its warmth. You can leave your dark cave and hunt and gather. You can see the big scary beasts and can avoid them, you can run, climb, swim or work with your fellows and spear the ba******. But then the Sun goes down again. Run to the caves!

When I mindwalk in those 'feet,' by F*** I am a theist. I love that big light in the sky! I worship it.
One time during the time it moved over the sky, something started to eat it, a shadow, we all screamed and screamed. The end is nigh! but after a long time, the shiny came back. There must have been a fight and our shiny light won. We must give thanks to the shiny light. Give thanks to the........ggggod!

Primal fear still controls or at least has a major influence on many many people, it runs so very very deep in the human psyche. I think it can be utterly conquered, eventually. I don't want to lose the fight or flight instinct but I do want to defeat primal fear and our need/yearning for supernatural protection/responsibility/guidance.

Let me think about that and get back with you. I appreciate your time. — Watchmaker

I also appreciate your time and your effort.

consciousness is fundamental

Do you know anything (else) that's fundamental? Biology claims that cells are fundamental to life. What do you suppose that means? Well, the way I see it is you take any living organism and deconstruct it so to speak, the process continues until you hit a point beyond which it stops making sense to call what you have is alive. That point is our humble cell.

Take the same approach with anything at all - it doesn't havta be alive, a toilet, your eye liner, whathaveyou - and analyze it (break it down into more simpler constituents), you'll end up with consciousness, beyond that, nothing, absolutely nothing. That's what "consciousness is fundamental" means. The world, at the smallest of smallest scales is an idea!

The universe looks more and more like a great thought rather than a great machine. — Sir James Jean

Niels Bohr, someone else, not sure who, said that atoms (matter) behave like mathematical points (ideas).

Am I on the right track, here? Sabrá Mandrake!

So I'm wondering what is gained by losing the distinction between conscious and not conscious — Daemon

I conceive a range such as:

Not capable of self-generated movement(dead or a rock for example)....capable of self-generated movement...some measure of awareness.....greater measure of awareness..... sentience/consciousness ....distracted ..... tranced/hypnotised(maybe)...dreamstate/sleeping/unconscious ..... comatose....dead

I dont think this is a very good progression, at all but I just mean that rather than a clear state of 'difference' between conscious and not conscious there is a group of 'states of being' which could all belong in the same 'range.' I am not sure if such has any significance or meaning towards the 'bigger picture,' however. I am just musing as I type a response to your interesting line I quoted above. I don't think we are losing the distinction between the terms I think it's more about attempting to categorise correctly/convincingly.

So by "we" do you mean panpsychists?

we can't reduce out accounts of reality to phenomenology as our first person point of view - our semiotic Umwelt - is the least general "view of reality" possible. And we are seeking the maximally general view as the ground under our ontology. — apokrisis

What does general mean here? How does the general
escape or transcend the first personal? Keep in mind the referential out of consciousness doesn’t reduce to some reified idealist notion of mind or first personal at the expense of the ‘general’, but simply a
radical situatedness. It is neither a preferencing of the subjective over the general and invariant or the other way around , but a system of mutual constraints .

Bitbol says questions about consciousness are not just referential, they are radically self-referential.

“As any reasoning, a reasoning about consciousness involves a conscious experience ; aknowledging the validity of a personal reasoning, or even of a mechanical inference performed by a Turing machine, is still a conscious experience. A reasoning bearing on consciousness is included in what is reasoned about. So, when consciousness is presented as an object of reasoning, this can only be in a fake sense.

In fact, as soon as we embark on anything like discourse,
reasoning, or scientific research about consciousness, we are driven away from mere aknowledgment of what is lived now, and thereby away from the central topic of the inquiry. So much so that recovering contact with it becomes difficult, and that, from then on, we tend to value more the abstract product of arguments than their
experienced source.

In the science of consciousness, one should neither try to absorb the subjective into a previously defined objective domain, nor objectivize somehow the subjective, nor give the subjective any kind of supremacy over the objective. One should rather go back to the experiential realm from which the very dichotomy between subjectivity and objectivity arises, and then establish within it a system of mutual constraints. In actual fact, mutual constraints are enforced between first person statements of phenomenal contents, and third person descriptions of those phenomenal invariants that are established by the collectively elaborated neurosciences.

If science is extended so as to include a “ dance ” of mutual definition taking place between first-person and third-person accounts (Varela, 1998, p. 42) ; if nature is made of views and situated experiences as well as of their manifold invariants; and if, accordingly, naturalizing consciousness means including its disciplined contents within a strongly interconnected network of objects and experiences, then any problem has disappeared.”

phenomenology that actually examines the structure of experience would not seek to ground itself in the sharp and personal sense of the immediate. It already has to turn towards the subconscious and automatic to find that which is more general. And it is already thus becoming more receptive to standard neuro-reductionism - as an account based on the methodological naturalism which is all about explaining the particular from the better vantage point of the general. — apokrisis

But the sharp and personal sense of the immediate is also involved in the modeling of the subpersonal, the pre-reflective, the unconscious and the automatic; in other words, the general that is placed as outside of the situated awareness of the personal is itself a product of that situated awareness.

first and third person view are the dualised aspects of the model itself. Neither "exist" outside that. — apokrisis

I suspect that semiotic models and Bitbol are not that far apart here. Neither wants to reify either subjectivity or the invariant products of empirical objectivity at the expense of their mutual entanglement.

I think the difference lies in how much ground is being ceded to formal grounding assumptions underlying both the first and third personal dimensions as they are articulated via the ‘code-based’ think of semiotics. There needs to be a way to close the gap between semiotics and Wittgensteinian contextual pragmatics, which is closer to Varela and Bitbol than to Peirce.