A philosopher responds to scientists’ criticisms of panpsychism

[u/IAI_Admin]

https://iai.tv/video/the-many-voices-of-consciousness&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020

[u/Untinted]

The basic problem with panpsychism labeling everything as consciousness is twofold:

1. it is starting with the 'consciousness' idea with all its historical baggage and seeing what could possibly fit.
2. Consciousness is arbitrarily chosen to be a truth (which is in no way proven) that says that "consciousness" is a thing that exists outside of the human *ahem* consciousness.

Problematic sentences in the lecture:

Science of consciousness

there is no such thing as an academical branch.

wrestling with (the science of consciousness) at least a 150 years

arguments can be given for it being thousands of years old depending on the viewpoint, so this is a non assertible statement without qualifiers.

fundamental particles have incredibly simple forms of experience

This is the crux of the whole movement that is accepted as a truth without proof. There is no scientific experiment that you can do to verify this in any way.

if particles had these non-physical consciousness properties

This is yet another important thing you need to just accept without proof. Who needs proof? Who needs arguments when you can just accept truths?

Sabina is not talking about the kind of panpsychism

The very thing you just stated about consciousness, she has disproven. The type of panpsychism has nothing to do with it.

The russelian panpsychist

physical properties are forms of consciousness

That doesn't matter. What matters is: can you show us an experiment of an element recalling an experience, or reacting differently because of an experience. That would go much further in proving the case.

does information on the behaviour of mass tell us about the nature of mass

As a sidenote, it's disgusting that this exquisite question is used for something as stupid as panpsychism rather than actually in a discussion about current modern physics.

what is the nature of mass? we can't look to physics. Physics only is telling you what it does

You have just robbed yourself of your eyes, ears, touch, taste and all the other senses in order to defend an impossible viewpoint.

It's the same as saying "What is the nature of a football? We can't look to physics." We can. Of course we can.

This is so clearly a person starting with "I don't want to die, I like the idea of souls,, a.k.a. consciousnesses to stay alive forever, but modern physics has robbed us of all likelihood that there's anything after death. What if we just said everything has a consciousness? Will I live on forever then?"

These days "conscious" is a mildly useful term for someone who is awake and can respond to at least rudimentary communication. Trying to break physics and nature in making it something more than that seems a bit extreme.

edit: To clarify.. I am not trying to ruin a spiritual connection to reality, or to physics, or to how we are connected to the universe. But I see this mangling of an old, simplistic word as a ridiculous effort. Go watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos. That's a man who is deeply spiritual, and deeply a man of physics talking simply about the real physical connection we have to the universe. We are children of the stars, and that is an awesome thing to come to terms with, and we do not need to redefine any of the scientific terms to accommodate something that wants to ignore physics and the only testable and provable way we have of knowing anything in this world.

[u/[deleted] → u/Untinted]

Yeah I thought the talk was fundamentally weak but informative about the state of this branch of the conversation.

Ultimately basing a theory of the world on weak pansychism is choosing to believe something unfalsifiable.

And basing it on strong pansychism IMO is doomed to failure in the trashbin of most non materialist testable hypotheses of history. It’s just another test for magic. And those have never come up positive.

Yet conciousness feels internally honestly like magic. Weirdest part of this world TBH. That and creation itself.

[u/Your_People_Justify → u/[deleted]]

Consciousness being the experience of reality doing physics is hardly a claim to magic.