On Panpsychism

Panpsychism is a subject I take seriously, because there are many respectable philosophers arguing for this possibility, but I disagree with them and this page is my attempt to explain why. I am open to the idea, but have not found conclusive evidence that rules out emergent consciousness.

Key Takeaway

As life is a process that runs on chemistry on top of lifeless atoms and molecules. So consciousness is best described as a process that runs on top of unconscious atoms and molecules.

Types of Panpsychism

• Essential Substance - one type see consciousness as the fundamental substance of the universe. Human consciousness exists as a part of the overall thing. As we attempt to interact with each other, we fabricate the material world as a communications medium. Atoms are then made from consciousness as a kind fo agreement between conscious entities.

• Universal Property - another type says that material is fundamental, but that consciousness is a property of all matter.

The biggest reason for either kind is that the feeling of consciousness (the hard problem) is so hard to explain. How is it that matter runs a process in such a way that things feel like something? The feeling oc consciousness is on one hand natural and familiar to us, and other the other hand hard to understand how material can bring this about. This lack of understanding leads the panpsychist to the conclusion that affectation (feeling) must be something beyond material in one of the two ways listed above.

This conclusion is then supported by mystical experiences which are experiences of feeling like there is something greater than yourself: a cosmic consciousness that one can tap into either by use of mind altering drugs, or by very serious meditation. What is never explained is how one comes to know what a cosmic consciousness would feel like, given that you have no other referent to base such a judgement on. How do you recognize something you have never seen?

A number of religions (e.g. Hinduism, Jainism, and others) also talk about a cosmic consciousness. According to Jianism we become separated at birth from that, we forget everything that we knew about it, live our lives, and then rejoin after death. Some see an equivalence between god and that cosmic consciousness, and in that view we are all little parts of god, separated from god for our lives, and then ultimately returning to god. So panpsychism is essentially a form of pantheism.

Critique of Panpsychism

I am sympathetic to panspychism in at least I agree that we don't know exactly how consciousness works, and we need to keep a number of options open until we finally have proof. Yet I am doubtful for the following reasons:

• causality if there was a special property for consciousness that was on every atom, and which had causal effect on anything, we would have seen evidence of this. In uncountable numbers of particle experiments all the movements of the various particles are fully explained by the current theories. There are no cases where there is unexplained motion that would require a new causal force to explain. Ultimately, the thought to raise an arm would need to cause an electrical discharge in a nerve, but we don't konw of any cases where an unknown force suddenly causes such a discharge. You can if you wish imagine all the invisible undiscovered extra parts of the universe you want, but if those invisible things actually interact with matter, we would see evidence of it. Christians have the same problem with the immaterial soul: if it affects matter, we would see evidence of it affecting matter.

• embodiment we think about thing in the work because our conscious processes are embedded in a body which interacts with the world. We can talk about things because we interact with things. I don't know what a disembodiece cosmic consciousness would actually think about. If such a consciousness can affect the world directly, then why do we need bodies?

• anesthetics if your consciousness is really just the collective consciousness of all the atoms in your body, then why does counsciousness stop when the right chemicals are applied. How is the consciousness that is a part of that calcium atom affected by a complex hydrocarbon that knocks you out. We know that anesthetics work by disrupting nerve traffic. Nerves are processes that run in the body, and their running can be changed or interrupted. This suggests that consciousness depends on those processe running, and not simply being part of the atoms in your body.

• incredulity Using the lack of knowledge about how something works is a poor reason to invent a new substance. A few hundred years ago, people could not believe that chemical processes could explain all the things that are needed to support life, so they invented a "life substance" (elan vitale) to explain that. We know today that elan vitale is just something made up from lack of konwledge. It is quite likely that this panpsychist new substance is simply that.

Discussion with a Panpsychist

I'm confident we have good reasons to think consciousness is fundamental, and that matter is just an appearance and/or element of a model.

If I have absolutely certainty of one thing then it's that an experience is happening.

Consider a computer that has been programmed with a program that can monitor its own state. While that program is running, the one thing it can have absolutely certainty about is that it is trying to monitor its own state.

But if you turn the computer off, if never experiences NOT monitoring its own state. The only thing that the running program experiences is the experience of monitoring itself. From the software point of view, that might seem fundamental. How do you escape this?

Second: if we apply the right chemicals we can put you into a state of not having consciousness, like turning the computer off. How do you explain the efficacy of chemicals on your "fundamental" consciousness?

There are levels of consciousness. Presently, I'm awake, alert and engaged. I'm creating memories and experiencing a self-aware, meta-conscious state. There are those who restrict the definition of consciousness itself to such a state. And they're free to so do but we're talking about different things. What we call unconscious or subconscious states are levels of awareness below the reportable, self-aware level.

I agree. I also think there is a level of zero consciousness. I see consciousness as a process (that is a dynamic interaction that is ongoing) and if the process stops, consciousness stops.

I don't think a computer program experiences awareness at all so that's one place the analogy falls slightly.

How do you know what it is like to be a computer program? I am exaggerating. A simple program does not have enough going on to be aware, I agree. But what about a self-driving car? It has the ability to be aware of its surrounding, and to interact with its surroundings, how do you know it doesn't have an "experience" of that?

What it does mean that experience is the given, is that mentality is present and known. So it's the non-mental that needs justification.

I try to figure out what "mentality" means. I have said I see consciousness as a process. Is that process called "mentality"?

Maybe you have some examples for me of things a materialist ontology handles that you aren't sure how consciousness as fundamental rather than emergent deals with(?)//

Consider a candle flame. It has an existence, and it is a process of burning the wax. Once started it can burn continuously and as a byproduct produces light. It can, however, be stopped. And restarted. Consciousness also acts like a process that can be stopped or started. Clearly a rock does not support such a process, and thus I would conclude that a rock has no experience. What would it mean for a rock to have consciousness when it can not actually do anything in response to that experience?

To expose a little more of the emergentist approach: affect or sensation is only relevant when the thing experiencing can respond. It arises from things that maintain homeostasis at some level. Such things have a kind of internal model of the external world, and the sensation is precisely the difference between the model and reality. A simple example: you feel hot when your model temperature differs from the temperature that your senses pick up.

This is basic sentience, but full consciousness only comes when your model is sophisticated enough to make predictions about the future that you can reflect on.

What evidence do we have: consciousness stops when the right drugs are applied (or damage to the brain). If consciousness is just a fundamental part of the universe, I can't understand why a properly functioning brain would be necessary.

If you thought I was saying rocks have conscious inner life that's a misunderstanding. IF they have one it isn't much. Like a dreamless sleep. But I'm not even postulating that. That's more the panpsychist's view and mine is more cosmo-psychism. Where the rock is a representation of a process in consciousness, not that it itself is conscious.

Ok, so consciousness is the base substance of the universe, and there exist conscious entities, and we invent the rocks as a construct to interact with. The world is a kind of "agreement" that is necessary for one conscious entity to interact with another. They are representations. (A purist would call them "presentations" without the "re")

My biggest problem is the anesthetic: why would the application of drugs cause the consciousness to disappear for a period of time? If conscious entities exist in a level below that of space-time, I would think that they would persist no matter what our representations do.

If everything is a process in consciousness then an anaesthetic is too. When that interacts with my body which is also a process in consciousness then they impinge upon one another. When you think of your own private conscious inner mentation, can you identify that which causes or impacts other mental activity therein? I mean an observation sparking a thought, which brings on a feeling, invoking a memory that leads to a further thought, causing a change in focus to another perception, that stirs an emotion and the memory of an idea... Interactivity is just there, even in the conscious part of mental processing, never mind what's going on in the also mental but subconscious space.

I am familiar with the concept of interaction. Between us we are fabricating a reality that I have a body, and you have a body, and that if my fabricated body sticks a fabricated knife into you, you feel real pain. (Real in the sense that your consciousness actually perceives it and it is not fabricated). Thus the knife is a representation, but what it represents actually affects our conscious selves.

That works for all sensations except for consciousness itself, because consciousness is fundamental. An electron can cancel the electric field of a proton, but it can't cancel the entire proton itself.

You seem to be implying that there are two distinct things: consciousness as substance, and mind enabled "inner dialogs". Is that how you see it: the inner dialog (sometimes referred to as metaconsciousness) as distinct from consciousness?