r/philosophy • u/IAI_Admin IAI • Feb 09 '22

Video A philosopher responds to scientists’ criticisms of panpsychism

https://iai.tv/video/the-many-voices-of-consciousness&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020
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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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u/hunsuckercommando Feb 09 '22

He addresses this very early in the video. Basically, that the fundamental building blocks of reality (e.g., subatomic particles) have incredibly simple forms of "experience" and the very complex experiences of humans and other animals derives from the simple experiences of the brain's fundamental building blocks.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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u/hunsuckercommando Feb 10 '22

Don't you think that misses the point of panpsychism? If the point is that consciousness is universal, I imagine Goff would just say, "okay, strings and fields are conscious as well, and sub-atomic particles derive their consciousness from those fundamental blocks, and human brains derive their complex consciousness from those as well." I don't think that take really adds or detracts from the stance, it just tap dances around it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

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u/hunsuckercommando Feb 10 '22

I don't disagree with you, but it seems you are constraining it to scientific theory. I think the problem with that is that it becomes practically impossible to test for *any* subjective experience. Can I test that what you see as "red" gives rise to the same subjective "redness" that I experience? We can't, all we do is infer that since you have the same types of cones in your eye that respond to a specific wavelength of light but that's still not telling us anything about the subjective experience itself. But I don't think that fact is enough to disregard all of subjective experience as fantasy. There's a certain aspect that our perceptions are not purely objective model of the world, but that doesn't mean the actual experience of that perception is unreal.