You weren't born conscious as you re today. — Raul

Do you think babies have experiences?

Nice easy quiz from Bartricks!

So, to be clear, you think your consciousness is the state of what - an atom? — Bartricks

No, not my consciousness, because I'm not an atom.

You think you're an atom, do you? — Bartricks

I don't. No sir! Not me.

And presumably you think that your body contains billions upon billions of other persons? — Bartricks

Possibly, depending on definitions.

And that everything around you is teeming with billions of persons..? — Bartricks

Maybe, again depending on what a person is.

And to be clear some more: you think the way to solve the problem of how consciousness - which is clearly not a property of matter - could be a property of matter, is to make all matter have it? — Bartricks

It makes it easier, yes.

How does that work? — Bartricks

You stop thinking that only some things are conscious, and you start thinking everything is.

How does that explain anything? — Bartricks

It avoids the problem of explaining why only some things are conscious and not others. If you say there are two types of thing, conscious and non-conscious, it raises the question of why (or perhaps 'how' is a better question) some things are conscious and others are not. This is really really hard. So hard it's called the 'hard problem'. So panpsychism is one theoretical way to avoid the hard problem. The other way is eliminativism, which is to say that nothing is conscious. All three options: panpsychism, emergentism and eliminativism are problematic. Dualism is a bit like emergentism in the problems that it faces, it seems to me.

You think if you multiply the problem enough times, it goes away? — Bartricks

In a way, yes. If we have so much trouble figuring out how matter-structures and how they behave somehow constitute consciousness, then suggesting that consciousness may just be a basic brute property of substance becomes more of a viable theoretical option. I know we should limit the number of fundamental properties as far as we can, after all it is cheating just to suggest that anything we don't understand is just a basic unexplainable fact of the universe, but sometimes such a move is justified. Charge, for example, seems to be one of these, perhaps, I don't know. Maybe spatiality. I don't know enough science to be able to say. I really think we are in that position now with the concept of consciousness.

Consciousness is, let's say, analogical, it grows as you grow and it fades in a gradual way as we get old. — Raul

I think I know what you mean, and if so, I think it is based on a confusion between consciousness and the content of consciousness. The content of consciousness changes all the time (what we are experiencing) whereas the fact that we are experiencing something-or-other changes not at all.

But the most important thing why you should not use word "state" for consciousness is that consciousness is not an "ON/OFF" thing while the word "state" suggest it. — Raul

I agree with you that characterising consciousness as a 'state' is wrong, but not for the reason you give. The difference between experiencing something and experiencing nothing can only be a binary difference, no? There's no intermediate state between something and nothing, don't you think?

this thing that grows in my brain as we grow and stops as we die, tis thing that Tononi measures using his PHI methodology. — Raul

Tononi measures the quantity of integrated information. And then he goes on to suggest that consciousness just is integrated information. At best he has a correlation, although I believe that has been challenged (need to look that up). My question for Tononi, and other kinds of functionalists, is "Why can't a system integrate information (or whatever function you want to specify) without being conscious?" To put it another way, what is it about what a system does that demonstrably necessitates it's capacity to experience?

It is simple Bert1, I experience my consciousness waking up every morning and fading out every night. — Raul

If you're saying that your consciousness depends on you, or that the consciousness of a brain depends on that brain, then I agree. But what justifies the generalisation that only you, or only brains, are conscious?

The thing that wakes up and goes to sleep, is you, I suggest, not consciousness. That is consistent with the view that consciousness, in the sense of the capacity to experience, does not fade in and out.

It’s funny how panpsychists always want proof for a materialist view of consciousness when there’s zero for panpsychism — GLEN willows

There's no proof for any theory of consciousness afaik. It's more a process of figuring out the least problematic one.

So far consciousness requires a brain, full stop. — Raul

These kind of strong statements interest me. What is it that makes you so confident of this? Is it that alterations in brain function alter what we experience? And too much disruption of brain function leads to loss of consciousness? Is that what convinces you so strongly?

I think you're talking the self. — Raul

Maybe I should use that word instead if it's clearer.

For that I suppose we'd need an identical body to be recreated, or at least functionally identical perhaps.

We think alike bert1. A good explanation of the nuances between panspychism and personal conscious awareness. — Benj96

Yes, it's an important distinction to make I think. In a lot of conversations about consciousness, 'losing consciousness' when brain function is disrupted is taken as overwhelming evidence that consciousness is a brain function. Understandably so, if we don't make this distinction between consciousness and identity. It's also understandable that identity is seen to persist when someone 'loses consciousness', because from everybody else's point of view, the living body remains. There still is a sleeping bert1, with legal rights and spatio-temoral location etc, from Benj96's point of view. bert1 seems to still exist. But there is no bert1 from bert1's point of view. The deeply sleeping body has no point of view of its own, temporarily, and it is in that sense that identity is lost.

I understand panpsychism. So do you believe that when you die, you’re consciousness, as in your perceptions abd experiences, will carry on? — GLEN willows

Not mine. On my view, identity is lost, not consciousness. So I no longer exist. But the functional unities that persist are conscious still, just as they still have mass. I'm a functionalist about identity, but not about consciousness. When I die I lose the functional unity that is bert1 forever. I might also lose it when I am in a deep sleep perhaps, or get knocked out. But it gets rebooted again.

Brains are made of matter, suitably organized. So, experience a product of matter (or physical stuff if you prefer), as is gravity and everything else. — Manuel

The 'so' suggests an inference, but I can't see a valid one without adding something in. Is it that experience is a product of the brain?

They are not the only two options. Some panpsychists (like myself) might say that consciousness is a basic property of matter, like charge, spin or mass. That way it's inside your brain without being a function.

Yes, that's my general impression too. We need some kind of electoral reform to do away with fist past the post voting systems that always result in a two-party system.

Not sure, but I'm way more scared by corporations than by democratic governments, even shit barely democratic ones in which the democratic recourse is to throw the Wanker Party (left wing) out and elect the Cunt Party (right wing) instead once every five years (and vice versa). The people can't get rid of corporations at all. The only defence we have against corporations is regulation.

I'm just an idiot, correct what's wrong with that. I'm not a political scientist.

The non-materialist's impossible burden is to explain ... the difference betwixt the immaterial and nothing. Mayhaps that is what non-materialism is all about - a study of nothing! — Agent Smith

What's the difference between a materialist and a monist then?

The argument form the OP is using is modus tollens and it's valid. Your counterexample is not a counterexample. If p1 and p2 are true, c follows. c (The round Earth does not exist) just happens to be false, independent of the premises and that probably threw you off. — Agent Smith

Yeah. The argument in the OP is likely unsound (P1 is doubtful), but valid. I'm baffled by this simple mistake of 180's.

I, a simple thing, am in a state of thinking about beer. Now I cause myself to think about wine instead. — Bartricks

Wine on beer makes you feel queer.

↪bert1 It's entailed by omnipotence!! The definition of God that I gave - and that you completely ignored - is that God is omnipotent (among other things). That entails that there is only one God. If X denotes someone who has 3 + 1 apples, then it denotes someone who has 4 apples. That you can't see that doesn't mean it wasn't there in the definition. — Bartricks

Sorry I'm so stupid

Uniqueness follows from omnipotence - you can't have more than one omnipotent person. — Bartricks

OK, but that's still not part of the definition you gave.

Now, engage with the substance of my case and stop telling me about how you misuse the word God. — Bartricks

You're not my real dad

I do not think I am God — Bartricks

You mean this? You were intending that as part of the definition? If so, that's not clear, and uniqueness is implied not explicit.

Opening line of the OP. Read it — Bartricks

It contains no stipulation of uniqueness

Yes, my definition of God entails that. That's why I said right at the outset that by God I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. It follows that to qualify as God you need those properties and that having those properties makes one God. All you needed to do was read my OP. — Bartricks

Oh, but that's not right. I did read your OP. From this:

It's not a God making property. If I am omnipresent it does not follow that I am God, nor does a lack of it imply i am not God. Any number of persons can be omnipresent, but there is only one God and so on. — Bartricks

You are clearly saying it is not just a matter of arbitrary stipulation that God need not be omnipresent. You give reasons for its exclusion other than its not meeting your stipulated definition. Namely, that omnipresence is consistent with multiplicity, but God is one. But not according to your definition, which you are taking as primary! You didn't include uniqueness in your original stipulation.

It's not a God making property. If I am omnipresent it does not follow that I am God, nor does a lack of it imply i am not God. Any number of persons can be omnipresent, but there is only one God and so on.
If you want you can insist that having red hair is the God making, but then you are simply using the term God to denote red headed people and are not using it as I am. — Bartricks

Oh, OK. You think omnipresence is neither necessary nor sufficient for God, but the other onmis are both necessary and sufficient? Is that your position?

I've defined God as an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. Omnipresence is not a God-making property and seems positively incompatible with omnibenevolence as it would mean God watches us shower.
An omnipotent being has the ability to be omnipresent, but they would not exercise it. — Bartricks

You can choose whatever omnis you like for your definition, of course. You prefer benevolence to presence, I was just wondering why. Is benevolence simply more traditional? Or you feel it is more consistent with the others? Seems to be that latter.

For me presence seems to be the most important one, and the one that generates the most difficulties if left out.

And so, once more, it seems I cannot be completely sure that I am not omniscient, even though I appear to be ignorant of a great deal and to have many false beliefs. — Bartricks

Don't put yourself down Bartricks. You can take humility too far.

By 'God' I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person — Bartricks

How do you feel about omnipresence? Omni-gods are sometimes omnipresent, sometimes omnibenevolent, but curiously not often both in these kinds of discussions.

Why can't this happen in the dark:

The brain models a self~world relation. That is why consciousness feels like something - the something that is finding yourself as a self in its world. — apokrisis

But this can:

The computational paradigm boils down to a simple argument. Data input gets crunched into data output. Somehow information enters the nervous system, gets processed via a collection of specialised cognitive modules, and then all that results – hands starting to wave furiously at this point - in a consciously experienced display. — apokrisis

If everything is X, then we might as well say nothing is, for nothing is picked out. — Pie

Yeah, it's just he's so sure about that.

No, he won't. — Banno

Oh, what will he say?

EDIT: Perhaps it's this one:

"The same logic that leads to skepticism about objects existing independently of my mind can be applied also to other minds. So if we have no reason to believe in mind-independent objects, we also have no reason to believe in other minds, therefore solipsism. "

Is that it?

Go on... — Isaac

It's Banno's turn. He'll say realism is much better for explaining object permanence than idealism. Then I'll say the next bit.

I think Saussure is basically right — Pie

I'm not so sure he is

The OP asks us to consider the relation between idealism and solipsism. So it is worth considering how an idealist reaches the conclusion that other minds exist. — Banno

Let's get it over with. Object permanence. Your turn.

Take a lump of clay. This lump is currently a sphere. That is a property it has. Now change it so that it is a cube. Well, it has changed shape, but nothing has been added or taken away from it. That is, the clay has not been divided. — Bartricks

Sure, but it changes its shape because of the particles in it moving around. Its ability to change shape depends on the fact that it is composed of many small parts. That doesn't disprove you of course, it may be that indivisible minds are just not like clay in the relevant respects. I was just trying to understand how something indivisible can change. You could say "Well it must do, because minds change and minds are indivisible, exactly how they do it is not my concern." I've heard people say that kind of thing on this forum about other matters (i.e. such and such must be the case somehow, and it's not the job of me as a philosopher to work out the details of how).

EDIT: maybe it's a kind of stretchiness that isn't like the stretchiness caused by chemical bonds in, say, rubber? But I'm thinking of spatially extended analogues, whereas you don't think minds are spatially extended at all (unlike me).

Minds 'have' states - they're called mental states for that very reason. A mental state is a 'state of mind'. That is, a state a mind can be in. — Bartricks

You said earlier that minds are indivisible, not made of parts. But they can be in states that are different from one another. Typically, objects change their states by rearranging their parts in some way. But for a partless immaterial soul, I'm struggling to understand how such a thing could support different states. How can it change?

Sancta trinitas unus deus. — Agent Smith

Frater domi dormit

Pater non domi scribit et studet

People keep trying to attach some kind of importance or magic to consciousness when it's nothing more than just taking in information. — Darkneos

It is more than that though.

Okay. I misunderstood. You already had the answer before you asked. — 180 Proof

Nay, I wasn't sufficiently clear. We do have to specify a reference point, but one of the entropic states will do as a reference. I guess the question then becomes, if everything after that state is the future, and everything before it is the past, then is not the entropic state itself the present state?

You're asking for a "reference point" other than the relative reference points (entropic states). — 180 Proof

No I'm not