I don't actually know what the latest biological definition of life is — bert1

I've been reading about this the last couple of days, and watching videos. There are many definitions, depending on the focus of the person providing the definition. But I was really asking why you make the distinction. I see living organisms as being potential centres of consciousness. They are "bounded entities", a phrase used Nobel Prize winner and President of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, in this lecture on "What is Life?". https://youtu.be/8-cTlKVsvvM

My view could perhaps be: before x can be conscious, there has to be a conscious p, q and r. — bert1

And before p, q and r can be conscious?

But that's to prejudice the debate. — bert1

-No that is what provides credibility and to each competing position in a debate. Objective evidence that are accessible to everyone.

-"That everything must be a mechanism is itself a theory."
-No, everything must be a description of a observable and testable mechanism not a hypothesis on unfalsifiable assumptions.

Unfalsifiable by an empirical experiment, perhaps, but there are other ways to falsify claims. It's true that it's not a typical scientific hypothesis. — bert1

-Not really. Unfortunately for us only empirical experimentation can provide Objective facts for verifying or falsifying a statement. We can logical prove or disprove a claim to but that is not possible for unfalsifiable through methodological means claims.

It would be odd to expect it to. The idea that conscious states arise is emergentism. Panpsychism is typically a denial of emergentism. — bert1

-Then not only Panpsychism denies an observable fact of the world, that's emergence (i.e. two explosive molecules when combined produce a substance with the emergent fire extinguishing property) it also makes a medieval claim for a substance being responsible for a phenomenon (like Phlogiston, Miasma, Orgone energy etc).
This is a text book example of How pseudo Philosophy sounds like.
Disconnected from reality and reproducing the same errors.

How and why mental content is what it is, and what entities have what content and why, these are still open and difficult questions, and I agree panpsychists have not really got many good answers to these yet. I think various functionalist theories could be re-purposed to this end, perhap — bert1

-The difference is that if you search a Neuroscience database or take an academic course you won't just find that many of the questions have been answered, we also use those answers to produce testable predictions (diagnostics) and technical applications (surgery/medical protocols).
This is what philosophy not founded on science can not produce. (Descriptions Predictions and applications).

Panpsychists generally do not think consciousness is an advanced property, it's a primitive, simple property, of the kind that could be fundamental. — bert1

_yes this is something that you need to demonstrated not assume. Demonstrated contingency to brain functions and metabolic molecules and external stimuli and a period of learning (new born) don't really leave any room for a competing hypothesis .

What should be the default position is an interesting question. Arguments could be made either way it seems to me. — bert1

No it can't The default position is always founded on objectively demonstrated facts. We can demonstrate the necessary and sufficient role of a functioning brain for thinking agents to interact and be aware of their environment. We can not establish such criteria for supernatural ideology.


-"Panpsychism is ontologically simpler than emergentism, for example. Emergentism says there are two kinds of system in nature: conscious systems and unconscious ones. Panpsychists usually say there is just one, conscious."
-Not really because it introduces an unnecessary agent in addition to a verified and necessary mechanism for a thinking agent to function.
No emergentism doesn't say anything about competing systems. It only describes the conditions needed for ANY property to emerge and be observable. It isnt limited to the property of consciousness. Combustion, mitosis, digestion,liquidity, rigidity etc etc all emerge under a specific condition.
Its a principle found in Complexity Science, a set of methodologies where reductionistic methodologies aren't helpful at all.

Some versions of panpsychism do make predictions, but not empirically testable ones. — bert1

-So they actually don't make predictions since they can not be tested.


-"The difficulty is that there is no objective test for the presence of consciousness in systems other than our own self."
-Of course there are objective metrics that allow us to identify conscious states in other agents, from our interactions to necessary brain functions to our ability to decode complex conscious thoughts by watching the fMRI scan of a patient.(2017 Carnegie Mellon).

-" I know I'm conscious. But I can't empirically verify that you are, or that my friend is. I think you probably are, but that is based on philosophical reasoning, not on empirical investigation. If you are saying that philosophy is not science, I agree with you.
-Of course you can. You are responding to my conscious states....by consciously processing what they have produced. Lets not hide behind our fingers, shall we.
We can examine the facts, and be sure that an agent who is aware of you and your input is conscious of....you and your input. This is why he is able to react according to what he is aware of....

These are gradations in what we are conscious of. They are not gradations between being conscious of nothing at all, and being conscious of something. — bert1

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

Here you have used the word 'conscious' in your definition of 'consciousness'. You could means several different things, and I'm not sure which one. — bert1

replace it with "aware"...but it is the same. Its one of this cases where using the actual word saves you from unnecessary descriptions.
To be aware of what exist to be aware of stimuli environmental or organic. To direct your attention to a stimuli and process its meaning, choose an action,etc etc.

Panpsychism is a conclusion, not an assumption. Consider:

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

That's a valid argument. It might be unsound (one or more promises might be false), but that's another conversation. Panpsychism is the conclusion, not an assumption. — bert1

Not really we don't have evidence that renders panphycism necessary or sufficient in explaining anything. Its a declaration.
It can not explain why when someone crashes he skull he is no longer able to perform mentally.
Its doesn't explain why damaging the Ascending Reticular Activating system a thinking agent stops being able to be aware of the environment his mental stimuli(thoughts) or his bodily functions.
it can not explain why other objects don't display agency.

Its a made up answer, mostly because it carries a death denying ideology in it.
We can not test your idea ...while we can verify the essential role of a brain for all the above conditions.
All the anecdote story about Laplace and Napoleon "we have no need of that hypothesis".

OK, thanks. Why can't all that happen without there being an emotion, meaning or feeling? — bert1

Well "why" is not the right question. Neuroscience describes how we as agents produce meaning and identify intention and purpose in other agents. We are driven by stimuli that arouse our emotions that we reason in to feelings, concepts thoughts.
A child that has no previous experiences and its extreme reactions to stimuli (hot food, falling down, cold weather etc) show that his brain reacts without previous quid-lines. As we grow up we construct a theoretical model based on our emotions and experiences of the world. We know what to expect and our reactions are informed.

Prescientific concepts of life might well have included an element of consciousness — bert1

You are doing an ancient mistake where our philosophy presumed magical substances conveniently having the same properties with the phenomenon we are trying to explain.
In real Philosophy and Science we don't presume complex substances being the source of a phenomenon.
We know that processes are responsible for phenomena.

Assuming thoughts can be reduced to an electric current as biologists claim (re neural action potential) and given that atoms, thought net neutral, possess charged particles (protons and electrons) and that too in motion, panpsychism doesn't seem that far-fetched an idea. We can play around with this rough outline of panpsychism's mechanism to refine it further. :chin:

Is lightning a thought? Are storm chasers aware of something we're not? I dunno!

Assuming thoughts can be reduced to an electric current as biologists claim (re neural action potential) and given that atoms, thought net neutral, possess charged particles (protons and electrons) and that too in motion, panpsychism doesn't seem that far-fetched an idea. We can play around with this rough outline of panpsychism's mechanism to refine it further. :chin:

Is lightning a thought? Are storm chasers aware of something we're not? I dunno! — Agent Smith

An electric current travels from one system to another, and is contingent upon both. You can’t isolate an electric current from the relational structure and call it ‘thought’.

Likewise, you can’t isolate an ongoing relation of change from both the organism and its environment, and call it ‘consciousness’. This is what panpsychism is proposing.

Consciousness refers to a particular relational structure of change (awareness) that occurs between an integrated event system and a differentiated event structure. Alternative relational structures of change occur between event structures, molecular and chemical structures, atomic systems, etc, but these are not referred to as ‘consciousness’ because it doesn’t occur between an integrated event system and a differentiated event structure.

What they do have in common is some kind of relational structure of change. I call it awareness. Some might be tempted to call it information, but that term describes the structure of change between our own integrated event system and our observation/measurement of the awareness; it is not the awareness itself, which is often a much simpler relational structure, and considered in terms of information as incomplete.

You speak as if you're 100% certain. Are you? Probably not. So, yeah.

You speak as if you're 100% certain. Are you? Probably not. So, yeah. — Agent Smith

Of course not - I can only speak from my limited experience and knowledge, and all statements are open to dispute if you have an experience that contradicts. This is what discussions are for, aren’t they? To draw attention to possible errors?

Of course not - I can only speak from my limited experience and knowledge, and all statements are open to dispute if you have an experience that contradicts. This is what discussions are for, aren’t they? To draw attention to possible errors? — Possibility

:sweat:

Objective evidence that are accessible to everyone. — Nickolasgaspar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have evidence of my consciousness that no one else can have, because no one else is me. — bert1

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

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

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

How does solipsism get along with panpsychism?

But I have evidence of my consciousness that no one else can have, because no one else is me. — bert1

-evidence for what?
I also have evidence of your conscious states mate. You interact with me, you share your conscious and questionable ideas, you appear to be alive so you must be conscious of your surroundings thus able to acquire what you need to survive. At worst, I can hook you on an fMRI scanner check that you are not a robot and even tell you what you think.

When I say panpsychism is a denial of emergentism, that's only with regard to the emergence of consciousness specifically. — bert1

-Cherry picking? Special Pleading...are you ok with the use of fallacies in your arguments? I am not, I tend to dismiss such arguments without second thought.

I'm only talking about the philosophy of mind. — bert1

Pansychism has nothing to do with Philosophy. Its an unfalsifiable metaphysical worldview and it is direct conflict with the available scientific facts of reality.

Of course, the vast majority of properties in the world are emergent. But consciousness isn't one of them. Consciousness is very unusual like that. — bert1

-Again Special pleading. What do you mean "consciousness" is very unusual, what is unusual about a biological sensory system arousing specific areas of the brain allowing the organism to be conscious about things in his environment????? You don't get to declare something unusual, you need to demonstrate it. You must point to the science that proves external stimuli can not be collected by our biological sensors (eyes,ears) and they can not be converted to electric pulses, can't arouse a specific area of the brain responsible for visual consciousness and the image can't be compared with a previous input providing info on what we look at etc etc etc etc

I think you might be confusing panpsychism with substance dualism. Panpsychism is typically a monistic view. — bert1

No I only point out that making up magical answers was a common practice in our medieval philosophy. The example was random.

It isn't assumed. Panpsychism must be true if the alternatives are false. — bert1

Again....you need to demonstrate that the alternatives are false......The evidence we have don't favor your ideology.

-"The evidence you are referring to doesn't show what you think it shows. "
-Allow me to accept the position presented by Neuroscience and dismiss yours.

Of course a functioning human brain in a human body is necessary and sufficient for a functioning human being, that's pretty much true by definition. — bert1

-You converted the induced conclusion of neuroscience....to a tautology. Great!

You haven't told me anything interesting about consciousness. — bert1

-Obviously you were not paying any attention. Neuroscience has located the areas responsible for our conscious states, for the introduction of the content of our thoughts and how by manipulating those areas we can affect our states.

This says nothing about the consciousness of, say, a snail, thermostat, or lawnmower. — bert1

And there is a reason for that......its because the brain mechanisms responsible for our conscious states....are irrelevant to those things you mentioned.
Its like holding your tuna sandwich responsible for the low air pressure of your rear tire.
This is philosophy of Absurdism.

It doesn't tell me why a functioning human brain is conscious, and why, say, an internal combustion engine isn't. — bert1

- Well what it matter is what it tells to experts, not to us. Our brain has the hardware that allows it to be conscious, it is hooked on a sensory system that provides information about the world and the organism, it has centers that process meaning,memory, symbolic language, pattern recognition.A combustion engine....burns fuel and its censors provide information for that process.

Why can't a brain do all the things it does in the dark, without consciousness? We know it doesn't, but why not? — bert1

-I am not sure you understand what it means for a brain to conscious....It helps to be aware of where you can find resources, avoid predators and obstacles, make choices of your behavior and actions in your society, adjust it according to other people's behavior.
Consciousness is a state where our brain receives and processes important stimuli that help it inform and choose the best action.

OK, that's good. OK, so we look at an fRMI scan and what? See consciousness there? Or do we infer consciousness? Or what? If we infer it, what is the inference? Can you spell it out? — bert1

Sorry but those are "funny" questions....Do we look at xrays and see digestion, or mitosis, do we scan leaves and see photosynthesis? In ALL natural phenomena we observe processes that enable specific properties and qualities.We don't see these properties, we see what they produce.
here is some material to understand the mechanism involved.

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/june/brain-decoding-complex-thoughts.html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02091/full
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/tiny-brain-area-could-enable-consciousness
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/neurobiology-of-consciousness-study-explained
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/what-is-a-mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRel1JKOEbI&t=
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-1etGWVvb8

I agree with you, I think I am. But the evidence I have for your consciousness is not the same evidence I have for my own consciousness. — bert1

-Actually the correct quote should be "I feel , I am ". The evidence are not the same but the are more than sufficient to meet any objective standard.

Yes, I can use it as an argument for something. Consciousness is an unusual concept. The vast majority of concepts do admit of degree. That's why I mentioned the example of baldness. It's a perfectly good concept, but it is not binary. — bert1

Sir...you are fooling yourself with these bad arguments and bad language mode.
You can be unconscious, conscious and display many degrees of consciousness from highly alerted to lethargic
You can be bold, have hair and all the stages between those two extremes.
You just choose to the two extreme points and ignore all the in between.

There is no sharp cut-off point between being bald and non-bald — bert1

of course there is. You just choose not to admit it. Here are the extremes for both cases(Again)
A. a head without hair b. a head with hair.
A a unconscious state b. a conscious state.
Both extremes in both cases display many stages in between.

Well, for the vast majority of properties in the world, I completely agree with you. But consciousness is different. — bert1

You should also agree with me on this one.

-"The concept does not seem to allow of degree.'
Of course it does...but you literally dismissed it when I pointed that out...just because it makes your argument look bad.

There is of course, plenty of degree about what we experience once we have got consciousness 'booted up' as it were, — bert1

-"

There is of course, plenty of degree about what we experience once we have got consciousness 'booted up' as it were, to use an emergentist metaphor, but if there is a 'booting up', there has to be a binary transition from non-conscious to conscious. — bert1

-And there are many degrees to baldness when we get/or loose our first hair.
Again you just choose to ignore the part of the phenomenon that makes your argument sound bad.
The extreme in both examples are binary.

But nature generally lacks such binary transitions, especially when you get the microscope out and look closely. So that presents a problem for the emergentist. — bert1

Neither consciousness or baldness is binary........

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

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

You said...

I have evidence of my consciousness that no one else can have — bert1

Then...

I can instinctively infer that they probably feel something roughly similar to what I felt — bert1

we have have gathered a large number of such experiences — bert1

one thing they all have in common — bert1

we can nevertheless both perform this abstraction and reasonably share the concept. — bert1

...doesn't sound very much like no one else can have it.

When you're unconscious Bert1, is it like anything? It isn't for me. I'm pretty sure that's the same for everybody.

I have been unconscious when asleep, when I hit myself on the head with a pickaxe, and when I had a general anaesthetic. I am confidently expecting to be unconscious when I'm dead.

We've got all this complex machinery in our heads, the most complex thing we know about, and it can be switched off with a pickaxe or anaesthetic.

If it isn't like anything to be you, when you're unconscious, so you understand what unconsciousness is, and you understand the effects of anaesthetics and suchlike, and their relationship to the complex mechanisms, then why would you think that consciousness would be found in the absence of those mechanisms?

The concept is shared, not the experience.

The concept is shared, not the experience. — bert1

How do you know?

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

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

I'm pretty sure the experience isn't shared because when I stub my toe my friend doesn't say ouch. — bert1

Yes, but you don't say "ouch" because of the experience. You say "ouch" because of a completely physical and traceable series of neural molecular and electrical reactions. You would say "ouch" even if you were a robot programmed to say "ouch" every time you stub your toe.

The 'experience' you claim is private is not physically connected to saying "ouch" in any way (if it was, it would be a physical phenomenon). So the fact that your friend doesn't say "ouch" can't possibly stand as evidence either for or against the type of experience he's having - if experiences are private. He might have exactly the same experience as you do when you say "ouch" alongside watching someone say "ouch"... Or not...

The discussion so far has prompted a lot of thinking on my part so thanks for that.

I've been reading and watching lectures about "What Is Life?". Living organisms are described by the biologists as "bounded entities". Identity then is something a bacterium has, without being conscious.

This kind of non-conscious identity is a prerequisite for consciousness.

I think bounded entities developed, by chance, perhaps around deep sea vents. I think consciousness developed out of non-conscious sensory mechanisms in those bounded entities.

Can you tell me what's false about that?

I've been reading and watching lectures about "What Is Life?". Living organisms are described by the biologists as "bounded entities". Identity then is something a bacterium has, without being conscious.

This kind of non-conscious identity is a prerequisite for consciousness.

I think bounded entities developed, by chance, perhaps around deep sea vents. I think consciousness developed out of non-conscious sensory mechanisms in those bounded entities. — Daemon

I think perhaps identity is more than just boundedness. Integration seems to me the prerequisite here for consciousness. It’s hard to imagine a sea sponge, for instance, being conscious. Have you seen one reassemble after being passed through a sieve?

I'm not imagining that a sea sponge is conscious. It has the non-conscious sensory mechanisms from which I think consciousness developed.

I'm not imagining that a sea sponge is conscious. It has the non-conscious sensory mechanisms from which I think consciousness developed. — Daemon

That’s okay - I wasn’t implying that you were. But let’s say a collection of cells bounded by a Petri dish would not have these non-conscious sensory mechanisms. I think there’s something more than simply boundedness in the development of consciousness. I’m suggesting integration, although I’m willing to consider that boundedness can motivate integration.

I just don’t think boundedness is equal to identity. What we lose when unconscious may be understood as identity (retaining the potential for consciousness), but non-conscious is something else.