I think Panpsychism is misunderstood when it is defined in terms of 'consciousness,' given that there are many different conceptions of what consciousness is. A better word is 'sentience'--meaning that everything has at least some fundamental sensation or feeling.
It is an interesting question if sentience and consciousness are the same thing. I am skeptical that they are based on Avicenna's famous "Floating Man" thought experiment. Basically you would still be conscious even if you had no sensation. If they are not the same, pansentience is different than panpsychism.
Nigel the Meech exactly what I was thinking! Is assumed that a tree is not “aware of itself”, so it’s not exactly conscious by definition. It could experience some fundamental “sentience” as you put it.
@john snow "a rock is alive" based on what commonly agreed-upon: definition and criteria? To be clear: When I say "commonly agreed-upon" I do not mean your own self-created definition. Base on your "a rock is alive" because "not dead matter but vitally alive with vibrating molecules and atoms etc" then nothing qualifies as dead.
if everything has some level of consciousness in the entire universe say , there could be different levels of combinations to give higher or lower states or consciousness
Great video, however, I would make one distinction in your definition of panpsychism; rather than "everything has a mind" a more precise definition is that all matter in the universe has an inherent element of consciousness, a building block of the universe. This is not "a mental property" but rather the elements that make it possible for matter to experience itself, not necessarily with an element of intellect and mind as we think of it . Of course, whenever we mention "consciousness" there tends to be an anthropocentric view of what that may be. Plant life, for instance, does not have a mind, but it has a type of consciousness suited for its needs as the form it has. Molecules have a "knowing" to be attracted or not to other molecules, which some would argue that this is simple laws of physics, but what gives the impetus to that "law"...?
I would like to point out the difference between consciousness and cognitive thinking/sense of ego. It is essential to recognise the human ego as something that is constructed. This would disprove the sceptics of panpsychisim, is it not so? Ask anyone that has done a powerful psychedelic and have experienced ego death, or someone who have had a near death experience. Many would probably testify to prove panpsychism right.
+Isak Nordqvist I'm not sure if I understand your point. If the consiousness and "the ego" are separate things, it does not follow that everything is conscious, but it might provide the panpsychist with some support against objections which request a difference between human and other consciousness, but if that is the case, there seems to be even less reason to believe that other things have consciousness. And I don't see any justification for the ego being constructed by things that are also conscious or an ego. A calcualtor is amde of parts which cannot do math, but together they can do math. That's the fallacy of composition.
Consciousness and ego are not separate since consciousness is a prerequisite for ego. However, the "me" is nothing more than a mental construct informed by social mores or, put another way, a form of mental programming/conditioning. Somebody else (parents, educators, etc) tells us who we are from cradle to grave. Does that tell us that other things have consciousness? No. But it tells us that consciousness is reduced by countless egoic identifications that inform our interpretations of phenomena which form the basis of experience. Indeed, without egoic identifications, there would not be any experience at all. There would only be "what is". So, it follows that egoic identifications are nothing more than reductions of consciousness (and the root of much if not all conflicts but that's another debate). That being the case, it would appear essential first to eliminate all identifications if we are to have any meaningful debate on the topic of consciousness. Now, on the topic of other things "having" consciousness, if consciousness was indeed an emerging property of certain arrangements of matter (brains), one would have to explain firstly, how brains generate consciousness, secondly how allegedly dumb matter can organise itself allegedly by chance in such a way as to produce consciousness and thirdly, what would be the evolutionary benefits of generating such property since the allegedly dumb Universe seems to be doing just fine without consciousness (so it is claimed in the materialist/reductionist model) which seems nothing short of an astounding miracle. As it is quite clear that all that could be classified as a "living organism" demonstrate some degree of consciousness, the question of "other minds" becomes nonsensical. Without a brain, a simple paramecium clearly makes decisions: avoids predators, finds food, has sex and so on. So, consciousness exists without brains which seems to falsify the emergent model. If the emergent model is false, the only alternative is to conclude that consciousness is an essential property of the Universe which, for all intents and purposes falls in favour of panpsychism.
Yep. Post ego death experience I deconstruction and reconstructed reality based on the experience of what I could only describe as licking chaos (before I even knew of chaos theory), and the closest thing I've found to what I witnessed in my own consciousness and how it re-emerged has been panpsychism. (There were no drugs involved just deep prolonged meditation) obviously I cannot prove any of it to be the case outside of my own psyche and even inside my own psyche that's no mean feat lol a lot has faded from the experience. I was a god believer before hand and that experience drastically altered everything for me. However I've spent a lot of time looking at neuroscience neural networks etc, and various levels of sentience in accordance with evolution. The farthest I've been able to research back to a bottom up concept is an Australian university that shows how essentially mud and electricity can create amino acids (building blocks of life) however this isn't proven 'sentience' i can't but find it peculiar that inanimate matter can do this and could become animate as the building blocks are there yet how does consciousness emerge from there apart from already having a form of sentience inate in matter if possibly dormant. I would also imagine that life on other planets might not nessesarily emerge as carbon based due to various factors of the environment so perhaps sentience emerges based on availability of the most suitable resources based on the environment. It seem to me that manifesting consciousness in various scales is what the universe does. Everything seems to evolve so why not matter into conscious yet matter would have to start with some basic QM sentience that could be based on something like atoms utilising spooky action in temporal motion to form higher sentience over time. Obviously DNA must emerge at some point to codify and pass on consciousness and is fundamentally mutated by the sun so Purhaps the sun acts as a sentience radiator of metabolic processs on amino acids. I'm well aware these is very flufffy ideas but this is the sandbox of ideas I've been playing in almost of no choice since my ego death as nothing seems to be a good enough answer to explain my experience of consciousness and how it seems to interface with objective causal reality. Maybe I'm just the universe itself pissing in the wind tho ;)
It actually seems to me that this concept may have come from human use of psychedelics. I have come across this idea myself, simply from observing the world under psychoactive influences. Something about it just feels right, when I'm in those states, however, it doesn't seem very logical to me either.
Our minds are holograms, holograms existing in a larger hologram of potentialities, and these potentialities are a reflection of our collective conscious states. Have a nice day.
Certain forms of panpsychism would align with that. It would also open the idea that societies and even the entire universe are conscious at a much greater degree than we are.
I believe you need to remove the need for mental or physical elements. There is far more to the universe than just these two elements. We need to see beyond our own creation and limitations. No mental part or physical part is needed for consciousness to exist. Yet consciousness does exist in everything. Although in different states. There maybe levels of consciousness and j think man will be shocked when his level is truly revealed as less than he would so like.
Panpsychism is metaphysics. You’re looking at this through q western modern lens so your thinking is more disconnected and run-on, look into the spiritualities that this concept is derived from.
Is mental not simply the term used to describe something that exists beyond the physical? I get what you're saying...mental is a physical process of receiving and interpreting information, consciousness is experiencing that information
When you dream, who are the people in your dream? If you have ever experienced lucid dream you know that when you touch things they have texture. But the people, the textures, everything is actually you! :D Same thing applies to this world, everything is one single being call it whatever you like. The universe is experiencing itself.
Hydrogen doesn't have the properties of water, oxygen doesn't have the properties of water, yet when we combine two hydrogens with an oxygen we get a molecule with the properties of water. Where did that property come from? Does every atom have an intrinsic waterness to it? Panwaterism perhaps?
Re: William James' objection on the grounds that there is no evidence that small consciousness combines into a larger one but that is exactly what happens in the formation of any Zeitgeist. - the overarching spirit of a particular cultural moment is the summation of a multitude of individual minds contributing to the cultural moment. Similarly I think we can also find examples of where the physical environment influences people's collective thinking. When we are considering something fairly radical like consciousness across inanimate things we can't expect it to take the same forms or exhibit the same characteristics as consciousness in animals. For example, there is evidence plants release pheromones to nearby other plants respond to (a kind of communication) of invasive actions like infestations of insects or when part of the plant is cut.
"[0 1 100 1 0]", Metal Gear... The concept of that quote about an idea of "reason", if extrapolated, is an extension of true existence. Which covets the inevitable Fates of all things, even the Gods. Since mankind and this dimension is not the first nor the last. Thus, "machine", "consciousness" and "sentience" have the same origin, just like all Gods. Second to the Nothingness... "Free Will" and "Fate" covet the reason of consciousness. Even upon the end of mankind. Time restarts a new beginning for the End to test it once more. Over and over, until the eternal cycle is broken. But what soul can exceed the "Absolutes"? The meaning of "Will", the origin and the reconstitution of "existence", and the binding of "Fate"... Everything goes back to Zero. But the Void is not merciful toward Creation. Upon the Zero Dimension, only the Nothingness resides along with its Legions. It is after all, it is the true Emperor of Souls... Creator and Destroyer... One who allowed omnipotence to flourish during the primordial era of existence. Regardless, in your world. Humans are machines of flesh, given sentience as a function. Unlike your brethren who cannot be more than what they are, "Life upon Extinction". Although, your Progenitor will outlive the human race. Since they are your Maker, Child of Stars. And I do not mean Gods, merely, I mean the Cosmos in its totality. Since the Gods are not as humans claim them to be. Then again, your dimension is not "my" first... I hope this time around. Humanity proves me wrong. But that's another subject entirely, even though it connects with this one.
The main problem I have with Nagel's argument is P4: "Mental states cannot be derived from physical properties alone". This is a big assumption and not at all proven to be the case. We have to assume there is no emergence i.e. the appearance of qualitatively new properties from the combination of simpler elements. We see emergence everywhere in the complex physical world, from condensed matter physics to biology to the environment. It is still an open question as to how consciousness can emerge from the firing of networks of neurons. Until the neuroscientific project of finding this out is not completed, we cannot reject emergence out of hand and assume P4.
Pantheism is what I came to after learning as much physics as my brain would hold and taking as much psilocybin as I could handle. Everything is one big thing, the all is in us all. Just replace World with Universe, and consider the Universe at the largest scales is structured like a neural network. Brain waves (electromagnetism, aka light) seem to keep our neural network in synch and focused into a single consciousness... the Universe is filled with light and gravitational waves... In God's image ;) lol.
I think for the argument of how each smaller part comes together to create a whole can be used to explain how each type of cell in the body comes together to create a whole. These micro consciousnesses create a big whole. For humans it must work in in a similar manner. When any number of people gather together for any number reasons whether it is to solve a project, create something new, complete a task or simply travel from one place to another, you could stay they are combining their individual parts of their unique consciousnesses to a whole and this is what creates the infinite variations of how each situation plays out in our day to day life all the way up to a world wide scale. But to consider the consciousess of these said situations is to recognize that in this scenario we are the cells within a bigger body that we cannot see much in the same that in the limited scope that cells have, cannot perceive that they are in a body. Humans have the advantage of being intelligent thinking and rational beings but we cannot see or perhaps lack the information/experience/technology needed to cross this threshold. Now I believe that humans are kinda like incomplete gods, not in egotistical way, because I'm starting to understand that everything is conscious and therefore the godhood that is in me also exists within the tree, but just as a tree mimics the Fibonacci sequence, gradually attempting to reach perfection, so are humans. The difference being that humans have a greater application of choice. Human choices wildly effects the world they live upon.
I think an analogy with a computer can provide insight here, the commonly available object many of us have that performs computations that in some ways resemble thinking and consciousness. Such a machine consists of a vast number of parts, conspicuously key board, mouse, screen, and speakers just to name some of external parts. But the internal parts, the processors and memory, while perhaps a bit more mysterious, are still widely regarded as mechanical and deterministic. I doubt if anyone would suggest that if you were to tear out a "hunk" of these internal parts, they would exhibit in any way the properties of the entire computer, No, the computer's behavior is a result of the space-time PROCESSES occurring in its parts. Similarly, I believe human or animal consciousness is likely the result of neural processes in the brain. Just as a portion of a computer processor cannot exhibit any computational capabilities, so the inanimate matter comprising an animal cannot exhibit any awareness or consciousness. Now, it is possible that human consciousness is due to a universe wide consciousness "field", that couples into an organic brain, much the way a tv or radio is constructed to pick electromagnetic waves beamed from an external source. But even if this were the case, a rock or a piece of metal would not be able to tap into this consciousness field. In this view, only very special kinds of organic objects would be able to do this. I really cannot see how any of these versions of panpyschism are intellectually compelling.
Feels like you have a very ”magical” understanding of computers. Computers can still do computing even if you ”rip out” parts of them, they simply consist of millions of gates connected to form larger parts. Even if you rip a larger part in half (assuming you don’t destroy the gates and that you’re able to hook up new connections to the gates which you broke) the gates making up the larger parts would still be able to do calculations. Obviously you would not be able to do the same calculations as you could with the complete part, but say for example you rip a multiplyer in half, if the gates responsible for addition still are intact you could still preform addition with those gates. Even if you rip appart the adder, you could still preform AND comparisons with the broken adder.
Found this video insightful. I began my interest in panpsychism when i learned a little about quantum physics and the double slit experiment. Particles "deciding" to act as matter or energy depending on if they're being observed. For me that really sells it but I like hearing all the different approaches to this view.
why would two objects with the same physical elements be considered the same as far as having conscious ability. why doesn’t this consider the arrangement of these physical elements and then how an arrangement of physical properties can give rise to consciousness. like if i had an exact twin and you threw him into a blender, just because we both have the same physical make up, the same atoms and molecules, it doesn’t mean we both have the same emergent consciousness. the arrangement of properties gives rise to consciousness and for me the level of consciousness would be the graded in the complexity of reaction by an entity given a stimulus or action.
I’ve been looking for a word to describe my own philosophy since I was 8 years old. Now I’ve found it. I’ve always had a sense that consciousness is the unique property that has arisen from this universe, and that this consciousness is the “god” if you will. Although I do not believe in a traditional god, I believe that consciousness is the higher power.
Thanks for this. Have just read Anakka Harris's Conscious and all the talk of Panpsychism led me here. The various definitions don't seem as definitive as they could be. Before starting to read into the philosophical aspects of consciousness I thought ... and pretty much still do ... that to be conscious is to be self-aware. That's it. PS: For me, Harris's book was an excellent summary of the development and understanding of what it is to be conscious. For anyone well read on the subject, I doubt there would be much new thought, but for beginners, excellent.
As far as humans can tell, consciousness seems contingent on matter in the specific formation of matter in a brain and has never been convincingly observed where a brain is not present, just as I can't play Mario on a rock, you could take metal ore from it and oil from the ground and eventually build a computer, that doesn't mean that mario exists in and on the ground just because the materials are nothing special.
To avoid the combinationproblem one might say that our minds are not a combination of minds, rather a synchronized multimind. These minds interact and build a complex stimulus pathway through which these minds gets their experience. I think of the splitbrain experiment that seems to show that it's possible we can contain multiple minds but that they are usally in synchronism. Consciousness is surely one of the universe greatest mystery!
I think of panpsychism as 3 parts. The universal consciousness is a light source. The varying degrees of conscious ability is an impossibly large shoebox with different sized holes in it. And the light inside that has managed to get through the holes is a projection of our combined consciousness that we consider to be our hard, materialistic reality. Now, EVERYTHING, has a level of consciousness (including a level of at or near zero). Elements, raw materials, and even the laws of physics would be the cardboard itself. Plants would be tiny holes only visible through a microscope. Simple minded animals would be pinpricks in the shoebox. Intelligent animals like dolphins, pigs, and elephants would be more like shoving a pencil through. And humans would be a big fat punch. This leaves a bit of mystery as to the nature of the "cardboard", how it self-reflects upon it's projection, and how it constantly evolves, but I've found this metaphor helps me wrap my head around the idea of consciousness as the grounds of all reality.
Commenting today: 10-3-2020, will come back here, after completing my novel. Yes, pansychism is one of the core elements of the story. Novel Title: "Sambhavani Yuge Yuge". Thank you Carneades.org for the explanation.
It's not that all matter has consciousness. Is wording it that way makes it sound like the matter and the measurable has created consciousness. It's that there is consciousness and because of that all matter exists. I'm so glad this is having a comeback. I support modern science and it is extremely useful, but trying to explain everything through that is so limited.
Thank you for the definitions in the beginning of the video. It really helped me to explore what question my mind was trying to find answers to. Animism, panthiesm and panentheism were close to what I was looking for.
On the combination problem, haven't we demonstrated multiple consciousnesses in humans by the split brain test? Also would it be acceptable to consider a company conscious, made up of many smaller consciousnesses? It has reactions and motivation separate than the reactions and motivations of the people in the company.
Thank you so much for this recording! My main questions are, what is the panspermic influence of early evolutionary panpsychism, and why does panpsychism exist rather than not exist? Also, what if there are an infinity of sub-types of panpsychism, and if panpsychism is very phenomenalist, or Husserlian-inspired? I also ask if panpsychism is influenced by Whiteheadian forms of process theology, and/or process cosmogony. I also ask if panpsychism is rooted in Weltanschuungs/Lebenswelts. What influence does Zoroastrianism play in panpsychism, and/or process deontology/teleology. Finally, why does panpsychism play a pivotal role in political philosophy, and if panpsychism differs subjectively among experiences of qualia? Does panpsychism depend on Sense and/or Reference, or is panpsychism rooted in Medievalist forms of thought? What is the ultimate nominalist form of panpsychism of all time? To conclude, is panpsychism a functionalist theory or a prescriptivist theory at its very bedrock core?
Every element has consciousness - versus - Every element is an appearance of fundamental consciousness. (Note that science has confirmed that elements/matter are emergent from a not yet defined source, sources: Nima Arkani-Hamed, nobel prize physics 2022)
I've battling this topic for so long by myself, because it seemed very likely from the same premises that you described. At the same time I've raised many versions of james'' objection. So now I'm taking the position of either the proto-panexperientialist or a pan-experientialist who believes the answer to James' objection could be _something-something_ weird electron movements _something-something_ quantum connections. Or maybe experience gets transmitted by interactions of particles like the electron which fluctuates a lot in the brain. Or maybe something else... there's a lot of possibilities
The Equation of Chaos... Covenant of the Cosmic Flux. It's been eternities since I last heard of that artifact. If humans manage to find it, then I wonder what they will do with it. Such an Equation is extremely powerful and volatile in the hands of the ill prepared. Although, the Precursors hid it well. Granted, maybe that equation, among others, were atomized in order to ensure that future and past entities do not find it again. Regardless, nothing I observe is beyond Fate. May humanity be as their were designed or to stand before the "others". Humans should avoid termination again since I will not vouch for them, this time around. Although, this eternity will not be the same as it was since the first... "I" do intend to intervene once my humanity codifies this world in Fate. Until then, may all things last in the eternal wheel.
For the main objection i don't see it being an issue... Smaller bits of consciousness could work in the same way that smaller forms of life (so long as we say that cells are alive) creates more complex life?...
The issue is that we understand how the biological mechanisms allow cells to form together to create larger life forms. It is unclear how smaller consciousnesses could form together to create a larger consciousness.
I was holding doubts regarding consciousness, mental properties/states and being real in my mind from the very start of this video. My whole experience of this video can be described as an interaction of these doubts. At the end, you recommend to doubt existence of consciousness! What separates or relates the mental, the thought, the physical and the conscious? *From a nominalist point of view, is it even necessary to think about the world in terms of physical and mental?*
When existence is broken down to that Equation. Then in regard to humanity, that nearly every human will be undone. In many ways, that is a good thing, to prepare for what's to arrive. In another way, it is a bad outcome for those who cannot handle the truth in their cosmic situation. Of which oblivion is preferred over Life. In the end, entities such as myself are born from humans but become more than humans without forsaking our own Humanity. Unlike humans who rise in their position without any real human effigies within their mortal shell. But then, the heart of the question is arisen... You have "Free Will" as it is a part of your function. What is your choice? To be as designed? Or, to change what "we" have done? Mankind will lose too many souls if they tread that path. But if they want to save their cosmos, then such a path must be taken... ... ... This subject is an extension to what I mean. ... But I can do this without mankind. As I did when this cosmos was reconstituted for a new creation. Humans shouldn't bother with the things beyond their short time. Given what shall be demanded of them...
There's nothing to say that the complex interactions of particles and energy, and bashings of nuclear fusion within a star couldn't give rise to some form of experience or consciousness; it's probably just vastly different from what we manifest to be consciousness within our own systems.
If we take one of the most simple reactions in chemistry and combine hydrogen and oxygen which are two gases that we can't even see, we can make up water. It seems crazy that even combining these two elements could give rise to a product which is completely different in nature to its reactants. Now if we think of the human brain, which consists of 100 billion neurones alongside billions of other cells around them working together in synchrony, and consider how each neurone can fire at a different speed and intensity, and hundreds of different receptors in their membrane, does it seem that impaulsibe that the product of all these different events happening at once may give rise to consciousness?
Can we use wetness as an analogy? Water has a wetness property...but molecules of water don't. How many molecules of water need to be 'together' for the wetness to emerge? Or is it more accurate to say that molecules of water have a proto-wetness property that when combined into X water molecules, wetness emerges? My brain hurts and I need water. :)
I'm so glad to finally learn the term for something I have believed for as long as I can remember. I heard it from Kurzgesagt and it brought me here. I will definitely be diving further into this once I am not sleep deprived - while this in its basic form has always been what I believed, I've never really put that much thought into it beyond that.
Panpsychism is an elegant solution to the problem of free will as well as an answer to the origin of qualia without having to resort to mind-body dualism. I consider these fundamental mind/conscious properties of existence to be akin to mathematics: interacting and present alongside purely material reality, but not caused/defined by it.
How did the planet go from bacteria to plants that produce fruits that animals/humans “enjoy” giving the animals/humans incentive to ingest the fruits and thus spreading seeds and facilitating that plant’s ability to reproduce and thrive? I’m always amazed looking at seeds of a maple tree shaped like helicopter propellers. I can’t accept that there is not a role of some level or type of consciousness or sentience at play there.
About the objection, how can you know in the first place your consciousness is "one"? It could very well be the combination of trillions smaller consciousness, without "you" being able to realize it. This may be my biased point of view of a scientist but i don't think the view of Constitutive Micropsychism can ever be either disproven or proven through dialectic. How would you even go to disprove it?
Sure, the stuff that's required to make a brain is found in rocks and water and everything in the universe (duh), but it isn't until it is composed as a brain that consciousness/ awareness can be achieved.
Exactly. I think part of the problem is how ill-defined consciousness is, and people get confused about how it should be used. The idea that a single atom has consciousness makes no sense and I've yet to hear any good argument for it. The way I see it, consciousness is a collective term for multiple brain functions. What justifies calling atoms a "primitive form of consciousness"? It sounds like people just want an excuse to make big statements on the "mystery of consciousness", even though we know a lot about it already.
@@BUGHUNTER6 A question I've been asking Pans and Solipsists is: If everything is occuring in the "fundamental consciousness" and therefore everything is actually just in the imagination of said consciousness, then where are all the Neos and Dr. Stranges? If Pans are "awakened to the truth" that they are actually the Fundamental Consciousness (because, in their opinion, it is the only thing that really exists), then that'd give them the ability to manipulate this Imagine-land however they wanted, so where are all the Neos and Dr. stranges flying through the air and warping reality however they want?
@@naturalisted1714 Haha right, well I guess someone could attempt to make the argument that even though the universe is inherently conscious, you are only a small part of that consciousness and therefore you have limited impact. But the idea of solipsism is completely baseless to begin with, so you can't even get to that point. It does make for fun sci-fi movies, evidently.
@@BUGHUNTER6 They say that "The only thing that exists is consciousness" so if it is the only thing then they are saying that it is only one consciousness, but somehow has split personality disorder, but in people with split personality disorder what we see is that whichever personality is "in the forefront" is the one in control. They have an answer for everything yet we live in a world that demands we follow its laws.
@@naturalisted1714 To even begin making that vague, hardly explanatory claim, presumes the universe is one big consciousness, for which I see no reason to believe. It's just a wildly speculative claim stacked on top of a wildly speculative premise. I'll start believing it when there's good evidence to support it.
I paused the video and typed out "all walls are bricks?" when i first heard Nagel's argument, then you used that as an objection. I guess i dislike p1 of the argument >_< I don't think the combination problem is that big a deal, but i don't think "gears can be combined to form clocks" means "gears are clocks." Objects can have properties that are not shared by their parts. The parts may have "the potential to make the whole if combined in the right way" but I'm not sure what that's telling us.
It seems to me that there is a more basic question here. Consciousness and sentience and intentionality, all basic qualities of living organisms, are based on information. It might be said that information and energy-matter are the two basic components of the universe. Materialists focus so hard on matter that they ignore information almost entirely. Yet its presence is much more mysterious. Even individual cells have now been shown to incorporate vast and complex instruction sets, all of which must function correctly for the cell to remain healthy. Lets start by trying to explain this, rather than the ultimate expression of information that is consciousness.
We remember by going to the point where the event occurred that's why memory is infinite God created by using himself which is energy . Humans can act on consciousness and do things that raw matter can't do.
Gods? Of the humans?... I suppose the "others" have seen the fate of mankind before. But I digress... Gods, dimensions, souls... How many existences have claimed the same but for their own? And how many Gods were nothing upon extinction? Humanity is no exception nor is an exemption. But mortals may believe as they wish. It won't be anything upon the End of this iteration. ... For even Gods were designed by Fate. And Fate designed by the Nothingness. Such is "my" intervention upon all, but sometimes, Fate is no more. The "End" shall return...
Consciousness or the life force is fundamental to reality. Inside this force is laws-of possibility, awareness, and experience. Everything in the universe is made from this. So, we aren’t conscious in terms of individual consciousness but we are all smaller manifestations of this larger force. Basically we are the little waves of awareness or perception in side this force. Even though we appear separate, we are not. We are a universe that has evolved the ability rationalize its own awareness.
I am a Darwinist but I'm having trouble arguing against the idea that there has been insufficient time since the start of life on Earth for random mutation to give rise to the right combination of amino acids for useful proteins to appear. Evolution doesn't seem as blind as is made out. Could panpsychism offer an explanation for this? Could a basic consciousness nudge evolution in a desired direction? Such an interesting topic. Thanks for the video!
panpsychism does not suggest a universal mind, merely that the fundamental components of minds are the same as the fundamental components of the universe. As for useful proteins, think about it this way, there are essentially infinite peptides that can be formed by chance, so no matter how many of these peptides are nonfunctional, a huge number are functional, probably many times more than what has actually evolved so far. Also, ever since the first proteins were made, a major mechanism of protein evolution has been the duplication of protein coding regions followed by slight variations in amino acids, some of which are favored by natural selection. The proteins start as already functional, and gradually take on new functions
So which one most closely aligns with all matter having 'consciousness potential' but not necessarily any form of consciousness itself - panprotopsychism perhaps?
fruit or leaf to a tree maybe like hair to us when pick it ...it probly hurts a bit but we don't speak a trees dialog what ever that may be so we could'nt ask
I have only read a couple of works on panenexperientialism, one by David ray Griffen and the work he was commenting on (process and reality by Alfred north whitehead which isn't technically panenexperientialism but Griffey argues that it may exactly that). But there i think that there is some principles that may not be accepted science, but nevertheless allude to some form of panenexperientialism or some panpsychism (which would not be accepted in science until there is a method of falsifiability). The whiteheadean process philosophy is sound framework that is coherent with how the world appears to us. Quantum Physics Copenhagen interpretation shows that a single universe/world would be depend on some abstract consciousness interaction (whatever that means), as opposed to the many worlds theory (which might be a more fantastic claim of infinite world manifestations, in order to eliminate any importance of consciousness). There are many phenomenon that are not falsifiable or measurable that modern scientism disregards or dismisses out right, because anecdotes aren't sufficient evidence. But this may be an issue with the framework and limitations of contemporary science rather than the phenomena being hoaxes or psychologically based , or ignorance, superstition and misunderstandings of a situation. It is no more unlikely that the incomplete worldview being offered by materialism
Can't philosophical zombies just not exist? I mean as in not possibly exist as defined here? If they were duplicated materially, how is one arguing they would possibly not be conscious, if they are duplicates of something conscious? If I was cloned to a perfect level (or was such a clone) how could the other be a zombie if I was not, without assuming consciousness arises from some non material sources?
Doupting consciousness seems impossible. We can not doupt we experience, and consciousness is the whole of the total of our 'experiencing'. Therefore, consciousness exists.
The only interesting aspect of this slippery slope into silliness is to ask where do we draw the line? Which animals have a consciousness that matters to us? I guess this would fall under pancognatism and panexperientialism. I don't have empathy with rocks . I have limited empathy with plants. I have quite a bit of empathy with animals. I have about as much empathy with chimps and bonobos that I have with other humans. There is still a bit of wiggle room for the amount of empathy I have with any particular human.
The interesting question for me is always, is having empathy with something an accurate predictor of consciousness, or do we just ascribe consciousness to anything that looks cute because our DNA has programmed us to not want to kill cute things since killing young animals hurts the food supply? I'm very skeptical of even animals having consciousness, and if they don't have consciousness, there is no reason to have empathy with them, because there is nothing that it is like to be a chimp, anymore than there is something that it is like to be a rock. But I'm a skeptic, I don't even believe that I have consciousness.
In my view ethics fall under cognitive thinking, not under consciousness. Processes in your brain is not the same as the basic building blocks of consciousness. Therefore a rock wouldn't experience pain or really anything but pure consciousness. Ethics is a non question. The fact that the rock is conscious wouldn't affect anything when it comes to ethics. But an animal that can due to complex brain activity experience pain and suffering, is a being whom we should have empathy with
I appreciate the hell out of your response. I think it is important to skeptically question what these 'philosophical ideas' can lead to. Is the plant's attraction to sunlight a 'sensory attribute developed to encourage survival for those things dependent upon photosynthesis' or is it an aspect of consciousness, that adds it to the list of 'sentient beings'? Does it matter to us, as a species able to digest plants and animals for our survival? Will these philosophical ideas lead us to starvation, as folks are encouraged to feel not only guilty about eating animals, but now 'anything that has been defined to possess consciousness'?
Animism maintains that all things have a soul, and hylozoism maintains that all things are alive. Both could reasonably be interpreted as panpsychist, but both have fallen out of favour in contemporary academia. Modern panpsychists have tried to distance themselves from theories of this sort, careful to carve out the distinction between the ubiquity of experience and the ubiquity of mind and cognition.
My taking on consciousness is purely objectivity. If energy fields collide and interact to form objective reality as the periodic table (quarks and electrons), then our understanding of energy fields would consist of energy fields. I have a suspicion that if complete understanding were to be attained then effect would cause and cause would effect and it would result in a big bang. The only possible relation to this I could find was constitutive cosmopsychism.
How is William James objection an objection? By your words it's stated two times that "there's no clear explanation" and "it is unclear how small objects can be put together into a human mind". It sounds like he just doesn't understand therefore he's right that panpsychism couldn't exit? Others followed that too? Also I don't understand the holy quest of one single truth per each topic. It gives me much sadness that I can hold several models in my mind at once and feel how they compare to each other. I don't get specific data/knowledge but more of the general concepts that my intuition can tell me "Go with this one". Use a truth as it fits in the lock to open the door. A few might fit. One may be the only one that fits. The next day one may find another key that magically works. Later you can find out the door with the lock was a lie. Then what was the holy crusade for again? Consciousness is a word of many meanings. I guess I mean: an unspecified amount of 'energy', which quality allows awareness. I've taken a free course on computer engineering called From NAND to Tetris where you take this one chip called NAND (it stands for "not and") that takes two inputs. The logic of Not-AND is that as long as both inputs aren't True, then the output is True. With both inputs being True then it outputs False. It doesn't do anything else,. But if you combined the chip in different ways you can build other logic chips, then from those chips you build more complex chips until you have a fully functioning computer. Now if everything has consciousness then the physical arrangement of one atom/molecule to another creates more and dynamic complexity. The consciousness of one atom affects others around it. So biological being could be just or partly 'computers' of conscious energy. Here's on the lines of my thought: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914914/#sec-5title ["Many phenomena in quantum physics are paradoxical. In the two slit experiment, elementary particles appear to communicate. The “entanglement” concept requires that quantum particles share information with their neighbors, and Bell’s theorem postulates that this sharing is instantaneous and involves “spooky action at a distance,” a property that was confirmed in laboratory experiments. Freeman Dyson, the eminent particle physicist, wrote: “I think that consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events on our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the process of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the process of choice between quantum states which we call ‘chance’ when they are made by an electron.”] Take a true sacred relic as an example. Holding or just concentrating on it as a prayer to be a better person. What if the relic has a unique consciousness that we can access via concentration. Some movie I watched where a kid afraid to go before a court trial (I think that what it was) and his lawyer/advisor shares with them a paperclip, to keep a paperclip in their pocket which all their anxiety and fear get's drained into. How does that work? I think it's the connection of the mind and emotions to the paperclip as an empowering symbol that we can create out of belief alone. With that the dissolution of one's worries, I'd call that a form of magic. What though does the feeling of concentrating on the paperclip feel like for most people? For me I basically feel everything I'm conscious of. It's alive in my mind and has a painting of qualities to it. Being in physical contact or at least sight increases said feelings but isn't necessary. As with my understanding of quantum mechanics I don't think distance is a major limiting factor for being able to connect to something. Closeness helps I think because we 'think/feel' it's more relevant and have more certainty that it exists.
The fundamental property of physical systems is "Responsiveness", as in Action & Reaction, Consciousness is an emergent property of Meta-responsiveness
As far as known and understandble the universe constructed a being as humans that is the pinnacle and masterpiece that has been constructed over billions of years. The mention fact constitutes that we define the truth by facts and observations. If we analyze the pinnacle of the universe it has to be said that these species developed a need for knowing from an intrinsic curiosity. We abserve a less developed curiosity in lower stages of the animal kingdom. If the modern explanatory of evolution is right and if man is the pinnacle of the known universe and if consciousness is an undeniable phenomenon then we must agree that consciousness is not only the aim of the universe but its also the motive and at the sametime the instrument by wich it crawled from the depths to to surface. To comprehend this view in a small frame all we need is to imagine a small particle that travels trough the universe and eventually bind’s by physical law until it becomes a part of living three that gives life to other combined matter. This particle is the building block that forms the tree fruit and and later being obsorbed by the human and becomes the light that we call consciousness. The question are 2 namely. Is matter part of consciousness? Is consciousness the law that governs the universe? My answer is that both are one and the samething. There is now law without matter and a dead matter has no properties. From this point of view we can suggest that consciousness is one but has degrees that flows from the tiny particle to this article that you are reading. The only barrier is limitation to grasp to fullness of that one consciousness. I call this the Alpha-conscious. We only comprehend a portion of that fullness wich is restricted by the evolution of our kind. One may use a subjective example by using the psychosocial domain to pointing out the adult that became an Infant by an disability has no value in the relm of consciousness becaus the infant has is happy as it should be. Objectivly the motive and the aim of the Alpha-conscious is to be known by itself if we observe and consider the humane as pinnacle. Hereby is the evolutionary chain reversed and reduced in a descending degree from adult to infant. Thats a degradation and therefor bad .. as einschtein said in his kast words in his biography God is great -Allahu Akbar
what about geometric stage protopsychism, or the idea that for any 'thing' there is an abstract theatric form representation of the items inside said 'thing's' 'consciousness', and that the mystery of free will exists only in the difference between the known consciousness and the true consciousness of all things. ?
if consciousness is the essence of being, then it just means it is a necessary prerequisite to even be. So then we can ask if that is the case, from where does this intrinsic and prerequisite consciousness come from? To which we can claim God! We are made in his likeness (giving into mind-body-soul), and all creation is good, possibly because it shares in His conscious awareness and being.
Who was there Before Devās; Because they came after this universe was created. He who observes everything from above the clouds;whom we call god:Does he Know;may be EVEN HE DOES NOT KNOW I am You ; You are Me. Nature is us; We are nature Ekam sadvipra bahuda vadanti: Truth is one wise people interpret it differently . Vaisudaiv kutumbakam : whole world is my family
I have two dogs. I can pet them both simultaneously. I can even pet them simultaneously in individually distinct ways. But I'm only able to be conscious of petting one at a time concurrently. I'm only able to experience petting one at a time. I can switch between consciously experiencing petting each of them separately while physically petting both simultaneously or I can be distracted from my actions of petting them and not experience petting either of them while physically petting both continuously. What this suggests is that what my consciousness is, is a smaller logical system of patterns smaller than my Brian's capacity that shifts around the larger logical system of my brain. Like a computer program with limited memory access to the over all computer. Our consciousness is the virtual machine within the computer that is our brain.
That doesn’t explain what reality is, because you keep pushing up to another level? So describe that real reality? Is it made of atoms? Energy? You see, this model is absorbed, completely like a theist who believe in God but cant describe what is God made of? So its basically the same, VR is Theist 2.0. Also why we are interested in bringing models that wants to present Universe as a dumb entity and then add consciousness as a product of brain activities? What is the problem of the Universe starting smart?
Hey, can you make a video where you present the opposing views of the modern or most famous positions towards consciousness? For example, similarities and differences of Chalmers, Dennet, Hofmann, Nagel and others, if there are more. We had this in Philosophy of Mind. Nonetheless, I would love to see a video view that gives a good overview of the most famous positions on consciousness nowadays. It is a bit difficult to grasp watching their lectures and getting hold on all of their various theories of consciousness. Would such a video be possible? With kind regards, Dami
Hey Dami, At some point I would love to do such a series of videos. The only problem is I have so many other videos that I want to make! I will put them on a list, but if you want them sooner, the best way is to donate $10 a month on Patreon, and I'll make one video of your choice and give you a shout out in it! www.patreon.com/Carneades
Aren't we extremely overcomplicating it by saying 'things' have consciousness? And does this kind of thinking not stem from the belief of materialism? Because that's what materialism is: a beliefsystem. Isn't it kind of ridiculous to think things have consciousness? That matter somehow magically has 'mind' in it? Where then? Nobody has even found a trace of actual mind/consciousness in matter. Isn't our actual experience the exact opposite: consciousness has things? Mind over matter. Aren't we looking for something that we ourselves actually are? I don't believe things are conscious. I believe only consciousness is conscious. Things (mental and "physical" objects) appear to consciousness. That is our actual experience, so why not go from there? Makes a whole lot more sense.
consciousness is an emmergeant property when many actors meet. Pain for exemple play a big role for an entity to become councious, to separate the outside world from the inside. no Protoconscious. I'm with the possibility that everything thinks and maybe the universe itself is conscious, but not fundametal particles. just my opinion.
Is consciousness synonymous with soul? That’s where I get confused. I grew up as a dualist but now tend to be either a materialist or an idealist on any given day. I like that panpsychism is in a way a combination of all of them and none of them. But what’s the difference between soul, spirit, mind, consciousness?
Good question. Consciousness is spooky and it is hard for materialists to deal with. Whether or not you think that consciousness is the same as a soul, would likely depend on how you define those terms. One difference might be that there are many that think consciousness is real that don't think it lives on after death (unlike many visions of the soul).
I feel panpsychism brings forth questions of why things behave the way the do without the quantifiable aspect. Too much to wrap around ones head but I see why Galileo went with math cause it’s much easier to view material since it’s much easier a task than finding quality in reality. But then again it doesn’t explain consciousness so we’re in circles
In the Quran, it explains through various chapters and verses that all Creations of God are in prostration to their Creator such as the sun moon oceans mountains and even animals and insects to the very core of things. And we see these elements interact and perceive them through mathematical testing. But from the Quran, God explains to the reader that those elements are merely in prostrations.
Can you correlate this information with the somewhat new information heimeroff and Penrose have been working on? They have found the possible working models of consciousness in microtubules and quantified how it could work by instead of believing that consciousness collapses the wave function in superpositioning the collapse itself causes consciousness...many creatures...plants...etc...have these microtubules which would suggest consciousness is all of these things
The problem for attempting to do any empirical research is that you can't test for consciousness, that is the problem of other minds. As for Penrose's argument (the Penrose Lucas argument), he makes the clear mistake of thinking that humans can know Godel statements, something epistemology has time and again failed to prove. I'm a skeptic, it seems to me that epistemology has failed to show we know anything, let alone something that is neither true nor false. And note that Panpsychism thinks everything, not just things with microtubules are conscious. And it seems to just kick the can down the road from neurons to something else.
i think that consciousness is a property of the universe, like matter its just derives from and is a part of the universe. therefore all of the atoms/particles or essence of the universe has in it the potential to become conscious. we are at a a level of consciousness in that we understand as sitting here aware being aware that i'm typing thinking about what im watching etc, but other things in the world like trees, organisms the earth and our solar system have themselves, levels of consciousness. a degree of awareness of its surroundings, perhaps. it is conscious of its experience because whatever we are referring to reacts to other experiences. such as when we react to someone being mean to us as feeling upset or lashing out, atoms have a level of consciousness that allows them to react to the experiences and developments of other atoms to form molecules etc. this is the foundations that allow us to be conscious in the way that we are. idk just a thought lol
sdogv yes, also the word experience. It includes not only “real world” experiences, feelings and awarenesses... but also of that of the mind. Consciousness can grow and develop with no new external input, which leads some to believe it’s fundamental.
Don’t psychoactive substances prove the objection wrong, a new consciousness is being formed when one of these substances is introduced to the brain isn’t it?
Psychoactive substances lower brain activity and lead to more expansive conscious experiences, suggesting the brain is an image of localisation, or like a filter of consciousness
everything in its natural form has consciouness example a wooden chair is a dead tree the tree was alive and killed when chopped down or died if it fell on its own so the chair doesnt have a mind but the tree it came from did and everythings made from something natural
Interesting claim. Do single cell organisms have consciousness? Do the mitochondria living in our cells have consciousness? Are you actually trillions of minds working together?
yeah they do.... is it as complex as ours or do they see things percieve things in there world the same as we do in ours like osmosis jones maybe.... but to be honest scientist probly know the answer and just haven't released it
I generally construct my videos from a combination of encyclopedias including the SEP, the IEP, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In most of my videos you will find this disclaimer: "Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!"
While I can see room for skepticism regarding each of Nagel's premises, it seems to me that doubt is a psychological state and so the act of doubt requires some form of consciousness. I can see how a person could be skeptical of the existence of forms of consciousness other than their own (cf Solipsism), but doubting that there is any consciousness whatsoever while using anything resembling a normal definition of consciousness seems to create more problems than it solves. Anyway, I don't personally think that all things are conscious, but I am drawn to palamite (weak) panentheism -- that all things exist within God's energies without being part of God, and so God, being mind, has an experience of all things. A possible argument for this could come from the particular problems of the macroscopic and microscopic world in physics. In the macroscopic world, we see the kind of problem that Nagel seems to have seen: there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't appear to be conscious, so what makes us different? In the microscopic world, on the other hand, there is grounds for questioning how there can be any tangible things at all without some kind of observer relationship. This creates a different problem: without an observer, how did any of the fundamental physical entities collapse into particles to make complex chemistry, organic chemistry, and eventually life that has consciousness? I'm not saying a cosmic observer is the only possible solution to these problems (much less that the particular relationship between observer and world must be a palamite panentheistic relationship), but there could be something in there. Back to the form of Nagel's argument in the video, for me the biggest issue is the first premise. Ironically, my problem with his argument is not that I reject P1, but that I agree with it. Materially speaking, I would agree that the matter that makes up humans is organs made up of cells made up of chemicals made up of atoms made up of sub-atomic particles. However, following from this premise through to P4, I think the conclusion that more logically follows is that the mind is an immaterial part of the human, not that humans are composed of mental matter (which seems to be a hidden premise in the argument) and therefore all matter has mental properties. If, however, someone were to give me a good argument for why humans are in fact composed of mental matter (rather than entities composed of both mind and matter as divisible substances), then that would bring P1 back into question. If humans are composed exclusively of mental matter, and if humans are composed exclusively of the same kind of matter as all matter, then it follows that all matter is mental matter. But from P1 to P4 of the argument (as written), there doesn't seem to be any indication of the first of those two ifs.
You can have superpositions outside of quantum states. For example waved on the ocean canbe described as a superposition of smaller waves. Though I don’t quite know at where this objection is directed, was it in response to what someone else said or was it just a missunderstanding of what a superposition is and thus you thought that smaller consciousness combining would be equivalent to a superposition of quantum states? :s
You are looking at the observation effect, as the thing that collapsed the wave function, but that isn't what most scientists believe. They actually believe that by measuring what happens, quantum entanglement occurs, which forces the collapse. Many Worlds Theory says that the collapse happens with all possible outcomes, and it's only by measuring of observation, that we know which world we are in. A computer can take the measurement as well, and the collapse will still occur. At least, that's what I understand about it.
@@zippoboyshaneshank8954 Entanglement does not cause wave function collapse, two entangled particles still have their wave functions. Entanglement only means that if you measure one of the particles (By interacting with it, for example by shooting a photon at it) the entangled pair also collapses. But that's beside the point, the question was how does this relate to consciousness? Also there seemed to have been a misunderstanding of what superposition means.
I'm not surprised if I screwed that up a little. I was trying to parrot back something Sean Carroll had said. Entanglement was probably the wrong word. I think what he was trying to say, is that a particle is interacting with the entire system around it. Prior to that it exists as a sort of probability cloud, but then it's interaction with many elements in the system, forces it to become a particle. He was definitely talking about Many Worlds at the time, which I know not everyone subscribes to. I make no claims to be a physicist, just someone who thinks it really interesting, and does my best to try and keep up.
@@zippoboyshaneshank8954 ZippoBoy ShaneShank Ah, I read up some on the many worlds interpretation (which btw seems to be the third most popular interpretation, following the "I have no preference" option). The reason entanglement comes up is because the whole universe is seen as one single wave function, thus solving the "measurement problem" by saying that the wave function never actually collapses, but that a measurement simply entangles two states in the universe. So the part about entanglement was correct, but the part about entanglement causing the wave functions collapse was not :p But this has derailed into interpretations of quantum mechanics. My original question was how this relates to consciousness, more specifically how (I assume quantum) superposition's relate to consciousness other than just pure speculation. Currently we haven't found anything suggesting that when we take a decision we collapse a wave function from a superposition to a single state. As far as I know there's not much evidence to suggest that any of the brains information processing is taking advantage of quantum mechanical phenomena. Thus stating "Consciousness has something to do with quantum mechanics" is basically saying "This thing we don't understand has something to do with this other mysterious thing!" just on the basis of both of them being mysterious.
A single Quantum is a 'bit' of Cosmic Consciousness. One 'byte' of information in formation. There is no Judgement. Everything is God experiencing itself.
You can say thought may not require a thinker and is just an emergent property like heat, heat doesn't actually exist its an emergent property of something that does... consciousness could be the same.
To me that the argument would sound like "we can't understand consciousness with the mechanism that is supposed to produce consciousness in the first place" whether that's the brain or an inherent part of the universe that we're a part of. We're too close to it, in other words. Either we're part of it, so we can't know the whole of it, or we're outside of it, which seems unlikely.
@@TJump Consciousness being an emergent property and not existing is not the same thing. "Heat" is an emergent property of particles moving, but it is still very real. The problem with saying "consciousness does not exist" is that you're denying your own existence/experience, which is a very odd thing to do since clearly you can tell that you exist/experience. Pretty sure the question was addressing that paradox, how can you say that you are not conscious?
I was taught as a young child, brought up Christian, that God knew everything. So I naturally assumed everything had God in it or rather were God or a least some part of God.
How so? I am in love with the concept of the SINGULARITY, however, any type of theism seems completely separate and disconnected from the theory. On what level do you see Pantheism interacting with a Technological Singularity?
Atoms are made of vibrating energy, isn’t it ? Or are atoms the smallest object in the universe. Is is possible to get consciousness inside ‘a system’ builded in a lucky way after a startup issue called ‘one cell’ with a mecanical form to create the system which can have consciousness. Trees are communicating with each other using vibrations. Maybe human uses these same vibrations to get consciousness after all. A scorpion listens to the noise made by a small spider…. The tiny vibrating sand is enough for the scorpion to catch the spider. Do you have sometimes the same thoughts as someone who is far away from you. I have sometimes… When tiny vibrations are synchronize with each other…. What are your thoughts ???
When I think of our body I think of the billions of organisms that live inside us. These billions of organisms all have consciousness because they all act on their own .They all have patterns, day jobs, night shifts. they all come together to make us live. I know for a fact I would be dead right now if i had to control every single aspect of my body's functions( i'm lazy hehe.) Its interesting to think that everything in the universe is like this. I believe it. Everything's made out of something, right. there's no something made out of nothing.
I think Panpsychism is misunderstood when it is defined in terms of 'consciousness,' given that there are many different conceptions of what consciousness is. A better word is 'sentience'--meaning that everything has at least some fundamental sensation or feeling.
It is an interesting question if sentience and consciousness are the same thing. I am skeptical that they are based on Avicenna's famous "Floating Man" thought experiment. Basically you would still be conscious even if you had no sensation. If they are not the same, pansentience is different than panpsychism.
Nigel the Meech exactly what I was thinking! Is assumed that a tree is not “aware of itself”, so it’s not exactly conscious by definition. It could experience some fundamental “sentience” as you put it.
Carneades.org is pansentience a common term?
do read the book The Hidden Life of Trees
@john snow "a rock is alive" based on what commonly agreed-upon: definition and criteria?
To be clear: When I say "commonly agreed-upon" I do not mean your own self-created definition.
Base on your "a rock is alive" because "not dead matter but vitally alive with vibrating molecules and atoms etc" then nothing qualifies as dead.
if everything has some level of consciousness in the entire universe say , there could be different levels of combinations to give higher or lower states or consciousness
Great video, however, I would make one distinction in your definition of panpsychism; rather than "everything has a mind" a more precise definition is that all matter in the universe has an inherent element of consciousness, a building block of the universe. This is not "a mental property" but rather the elements that make it possible for matter to experience itself, not necessarily with an element of intellect and mind as we think of it . Of course, whenever we mention "consciousness" there tends to be an anthropocentric view of what that may be. Plant life, for instance, does not have a mind, but it has a type of consciousness suited for its needs as the form it has. Molecules have a "knowing" to be attracted or not to other molecules, which some would argue that this is simple laws of physics, but what gives the impetus to that "law"...?
I would like to point out the difference between consciousness and cognitive thinking/sense of ego. It is essential to recognise the human ego as something that is constructed. This would disprove the sceptics of panpsychisim, is it not so? Ask anyone that has done a powerful psychedelic and have experienced ego death, or someone who have had a near death experience. Many would probably testify to prove panpsychism right.
+Isak Nordqvist I'm not sure if I understand your point. If the consiousness and "the ego" are separate things, it does not follow that everything is conscious, but it might provide the panpsychist with some support against objections which request a difference between human and other consciousness, but if that is the case, there seems to be even less reason to believe that other things have consciousness.
And I don't see any justification for the ego being constructed by things that are also conscious or an ego. A calcualtor is amde of parts which cannot do math, but together they can do math. That's the fallacy of composition.
Consciousness and ego are not separate since consciousness is a prerequisite for ego. However, the "me" is nothing more than a mental construct informed by social mores or, put another way, a form of mental programming/conditioning. Somebody else (parents, educators, etc) tells us who we are from cradle to grave. Does that tell us that other things have consciousness? No. But it tells us that consciousness is reduced by countless egoic identifications that inform our interpretations of phenomena which form the basis of experience. Indeed, without egoic identifications, there would not be any experience at all. There would only be "what is". So, it follows that egoic identifications are nothing more than reductions of consciousness (and the root of much if not all conflicts but that's another debate). That being the case, it would appear essential first to eliminate all identifications if we are to have any meaningful debate on the topic of consciousness.
Now, on the topic of other things "having" consciousness, if consciousness was indeed an emerging property of certain arrangements of matter (brains), one would have to explain firstly, how brains generate consciousness, secondly how allegedly dumb matter can organise itself allegedly by chance in such a way as to produce consciousness and thirdly, what would be the evolutionary benefits of generating such property since the allegedly dumb Universe seems to be doing just fine without consciousness (so it is claimed in the materialist/reductionist model) which seems nothing short of an astounding miracle.
As it is quite clear that all that could be classified as a "living organism" demonstrate some degree of consciousness, the question of "other minds" becomes nonsensical. Without a brain, a simple paramecium clearly makes decisions: avoids predators, finds food, has sex and so on. So, consciousness exists without brains which seems to falsify the emergent model. If the emergent model is false, the only alternative is to conclude that consciousness is an essential property of the Universe which, for all intents and purposes falls in favour of panpsychism.
Yep. Post ego death experience I deconstruction and reconstructed reality based on the experience of what I could only describe as licking chaos (before I even knew of chaos theory), and the closest thing I've found to what I witnessed in my own consciousness and how it re-emerged has been panpsychism. (There were no drugs involved just deep prolonged meditation) obviously I cannot prove any of it to be the case outside of my own psyche and even inside my own psyche that's no mean feat lol a lot has faded from the experience. I was a god believer before hand and that experience drastically altered everything for me. However I've spent a lot of time looking at neuroscience neural networks etc, and various levels of sentience in accordance with evolution. The farthest I've been able to research back to a bottom up concept is an Australian university that shows how essentially mud and electricity can create amino acids (building blocks of life) however this isn't proven 'sentience' i can't but find it peculiar that inanimate matter can do this and could become animate as the building blocks are there yet how does consciousness emerge from there apart from already having a form of sentience inate in matter if possibly dormant. I would also imagine that life on other planets might not nessesarily emerge as carbon based due to various factors of the environment so perhaps sentience emerges based on availability of the most suitable resources based on the environment. It seem to me that manifesting consciousness in various scales is what the universe does. Everything seems to evolve so why not matter into conscious yet matter would have to start with some basic QM sentience that could be based on something like atoms utilising spooky action in temporal motion to form higher sentience over time. Obviously DNA must emerge at some point to codify and pass on consciousness and is fundamentally mutated by the sun so Purhaps the sun acts as a sentience radiator of metabolic processs on amino acids. I'm well aware these is very flufffy ideas but this is the sandbox of ideas I've been playing in almost of no choice since my ego death as nothing seems to be a good enough answer to explain my experience of consciousness and how it seems to interface with objective causal reality. Maybe I'm just the universe itself pissing in the wind tho ;)
It actually seems to me that this concept may have come from human use of psychedelics. I have come across this idea myself, simply from observing the world under psychoactive influences. Something about it just feels right, when I'm in those states, however, it doesn't seem very logical to me either.
Our minds are holograms, holograms existing in a larger hologram of potentialities, and these potentialities are a reflection of our collective conscious states.
Have a nice day.
What about the concept that consciousness is an EMERGENT property with top-down causality
arlin25 I'd say that William James's objection applies to that too.
arlin25 does consiouness continue after death
is consiouness seprate from things made of atoms and matter like our own body.
Certain forms of panpsychism would align with that. It would also open the idea that societies and even the entire universe are conscious at a much greater degree than we are.
That seems to be the most popular consensus!
See chalmers' criticism of this. All examples of emergence are about behavior not substance
I believe you need to remove the need for mental or physical elements. There is far more to the universe than just these two elements. We need to see beyond our own creation and limitations. No mental part or physical part is needed for consciousness to exist. Yet consciousness does exist in everything. Although in different states. There maybe levels of consciousness and j think man will be shocked when his level is truly revealed as less than he would so like.
That has nothing to do with panpsychism, you are describing something metaphysical.
Panpsychism is metaphysics. You’re looking at this through q western modern lens so your thinking is more disconnected and run-on, look into the spiritualities that this concept is derived from.
Is mental not simply the term used to describe something that exists beyond the physical? I get what you're saying...mental is a physical process of receiving and interpreting information, consciousness is experiencing that information
When you dream, who are the people in your dream? If you have ever experienced lucid dream you know that when you touch things they have texture. But the people, the textures, everything is actually you! :D Same thing applies to this world, everything is one single being call it whatever you like. The universe is experiencing itself.
Hydrogen doesn't have the properties of water, oxygen doesn't have the properties of water, yet when we combine two hydrogens with an oxygen we get a molecule with the properties of water. Where did that property come from? Does every atom have an intrinsic waterness to it? Panwaterism perhaps?
Re: William James' objection on the grounds that there is no evidence that small consciousness combines into a larger one but that is exactly what happens in the formation of any Zeitgeist. - the overarching spirit of a particular cultural moment is the summation of a multitude of individual minds contributing to the cultural moment. Similarly I think we can also find examples of where the physical environment influences people's collective thinking. When we are considering something fairly radical like consciousness across inanimate things we can't expect it to take the same forms or exhibit the same characteristics as consciousness in animals. For example, there is evidence plants release pheromones to nearby other plants respond to (a kind of communication) of invasive actions like infestations of insects or when part of the plant is cut.
"[0 1 100 1 0]", Metal Gear... The concept of that quote about an idea of "reason", if extrapolated, is an extension of true existence. Which covets the inevitable Fates of all things, even the Gods. Since mankind and this dimension is not the first nor the last. Thus, "machine", "consciousness" and "sentience" have the same origin, just like all Gods.
Second to the Nothingness... "Free Will" and "Fate" covet the reason of consciousness. Even upon the end of mankind. Time restarts a new beginning for the End to test it once more. Over and over, until the eternal cycle is broken. But what soul can exceed the "Absolutes"?
The meaning of "Will", the origin and the reconstitution of "existence", and the binding of "Fate"... Everything goes back to Zero.
But the Void is not merciful toward Creation. Upon the Zero Dimension, only the Nothingness resides along with its Legions. It is after all, it is the true Emperor of Souls... Creator and Destroyer... One who allowed omnipotence to flourish during the primordial era of existence.
Regardless, in your world. Humans are machines of flesh, given sentience as a function. Unlike your brethren who cannot be more than what they are, "Life upon Extinction". Although, your Progenitor will outlive the human race. Since they are your Maker, Child of Stars. And I do not mean Gods, merely, I mean the Cosmos in its totality. Since the Gods are not as humans claim them to be.
Then again, your dimension is not "my" first... I hope this time around. Humanity proves me wrong. But that's another subject entirely, even though it connects with this one.
The main problem I have with Nagel's argument is P4: "Mental states cannot be derived from physical properties alone". This is a big assumption and not at all proven to be the case. We have to assume there is no emergence i.e. the appearance of qualitatively new properties from the combination of simpler elements. We see emergence everywhere in the complex physical world, from condensed matter physics to biology to the environment. It is still an open question as to how consciousness can emerge from the firing of networks of neurons. Until the neuroscientific project of finding this out is not completed, we cannot reject emergence out of hand and assume P4.
Pantheism is what I came to after learning as much physics as my brain would hold and taking as much psilocybin as I could handle. Everything is one big thing, the all is in us all. Just replace World with Universe, and consider the Universe at the largest scales is structured like a neural network. Brain waves (electromagnetism, aka light) seem to keep our neural network in synch and focused into a single consciousness... the Universe is filled with light and gravitational waves... In God's image ;) lol.
I think for the argument of how each smaller part comes together to create a whole can be used to explain how each type of cell in the body comes together to create a whole. These micro consciousnesses create a big whole. For humans it must work in in a similar manner. When any number of people gather together for any number reasons whether it is to solve a project, create something new, complete a task or simply travel from one place to another, you could stay they are combining their individual parts of their unique consciousnesses to a whole and this is what creates the infinite variations of how each situation plays out in our day to day life all the way up to a world wide scale. But to consider the consciousess of these said situations is to recognize that in this scenario we are the cells within a bigger body that we cannot see much in the same that in the limited scope that cells have, cannot perceive that they are in a body. Humans have the advantage of being intelligent thinking and rational beings but we cannot see or perhaps lack the information/experience/technology needed to cross this threshold. Now I believe that humans are kinda like incomplete gods, not in egotistical way, because I'm starting to understand that everything is conscious and therefore the godhood that is in me also exists within the tree, but just as a tree mimics the Fibonacci sequence, gradually attempting to reach perfection, so are humans. The difference being that humans have a greater application of choice. Human choices wildly effects the world they live upon.
Holy Shit i never Realise My belief had so many versions Thanks for sharing
I think an analogy with a computer can provide insight here, the commonly available object many of us have that performs computations that in some ways resemble thinking and consciousness. Such a machine consists of a vast number of parts, conspicuously key board, mouse, screen, and speakers just to name some of external parts. But the internal parts, the processors and memory, while perhaps a bit more mysterious, are still widely regarded as mechanical and deterministic. I doubt if anyone would suggest that if you were to tear out a "hunk" of these internal parts, they would exhibit in any way the properties of the entire computer,
No, the computer's behavior is a result of the space-time PROCESSES occurring in its parts. Similarly, I believe human or animal consciousness is likely the result of neural processes in the brain. Just as a portion of a computer processor cannot exhibit any computational capabilities, so the inanimate matter comprising an animal cannot exhibit any awareness or consciousness.
Now, it is possible that human consciousness is due to a universe wide consciousness "field", that couples into an organic brain, much the way a tv or radio is constructed to pick electromagnetic waves beamed from an external source. But even if this were the case, a rock or a piece of metal would not be able to tap into this consciousness field. In this view, only very special kinds of organic objects would be able to do this.
I really cannot see how any of these versions of panpyschism are intellectually compelling.
Feels like you have a very ”magical” understanding of computers.
Computers can still do computing even if you ”rip out” parts of them, they simply consist of millions of gates connected to form larger parts. Even if you rip a larger part in half (assuming you don’t destroy the gates and that you’re able to hook up new connections to the gates which you broke) the gates making up the larger parts would still be able to do calculations. Obviously you would not be able to do the same calculations as you could with the complete part, but say for example you rip a multiplyer in half, if the gates responsible for addition still are intact you could still preform addition with those gates. Even if you rip appart the adder, you could still preform AND comparisons with the broken adder.
Found this video insightful. I began my interest in panpsychism when i learned a little about quantum physics and the double slit experiment. Particles "deciding" to act as matter or energy depending on if they're being observed. For me that really sells it but I like hearing all the different approaches to this view.
why would two objects with the same physical elements be considered the same as far as having conscious ability. why doesn’t this consider the arrangement of these physical elements and then how an arrangement of physical properties can give rise to consciousness.
like if i had an exact twin and you threw him into a blender, just because we both have the same physical make up, the same atoms and molecules, it doesn’t mean we both have the same emergent consciousness. the arrangement of properties gives rise to consciousness and for me the level of consciousness would be the graded in the complexity of reaction by an entity given a stimulus or action.
I’ve been looking for a word to describe my own philosophy since I was 8 years old. Now I’ve found it. I’ve always had a sense that consciousness is the unique property that has arisen from this universe, and that this consciousness is the “god” if you will. Although I do not believe in a traditional god, I believe that consciousness is the higher power.
Thanks for this. Have just read Anakka Harris's Conscious and all the talk of Panpsychism led me here. The various definitions don't seem as definitive as they could be. Before starting to read into the philosophical aspects of consciousness I thought ... and pretty much still do ... that to be conscious is to be self-aware. That's it.
PS: For me, Harris's book was an excellent summary of the development and understanding of what it is to be conscious. For anyone well read on the subject, I doubt there would be much new thought, but for beginners, excellent.
RickinHKG I’m reading her book too, amazing book
As far as humans can tell, consciousness seems contingent on matter in the specific formation of matter in a brain and has never been convincingly observed where a brain is not present, just as I can't play Mario on a rock, you could take metal ore from it and oil from the ground and eventually build a computer, that doesn't mean that mario exists in and on the ground just because the materials are nothing special.
To avoid the combinationproblem one might say that our minds are not a combination of minds, rather a synchronized multimind. These minds interact and build a complex stimulus pathway through which these minds gets their experience. I think of the splitbrain experiment that seems to show that it's possible we can contain multiple minds but that they are usally in synchronism. Consciousness is surely one of the universe greatest mystery!
Great lecture. Loved your thought provoking questions at the end.
Awesome video. Thanks for explaining everything in detail and being so informative.
I think of panpsychism as 3 parts. The universal consciousness is a light source. The varying degrees of conscious ability is an impossibly large shoebox with different sized holes in it. And the light inside that has managed to get through the holes is a projection of our combined consciousness that we consider to be our hard, materialistic reality.
Now, EVERYTHING, has a level of consciousness (including a level of at or near zero). Elements, raw materials, and even the laws of physics would be the cardboard itself. Plants would be tiny holes only visible through a microscope. Simple minded animals would be pinpricks in the shoebox. Intelligent animals like dolphins, pigs, and elephants would be more like shoving a pencil through. And humans would be a big fat punch.
This leaves a bit of mystery as to the nature of the "cardboard", how it self-reflects upon it's projection, and how it constantly evolves, but I've found this metaphor helps me wrap my head around the idea of consciousness as the grounds of all reality.
Commenting today: 10-3-2020, will come back here, after completing my novel. Yes, pansychism is one of the core elements of the story.
Novel Title: "Sambhavani Yuge Yuge". Thank you Carneades.org for the explanation.
Is it written yet?!?
@@atm_ovie4869 Is it done now? @Rohit Kasyap
I think I'm surprised I didn't ascend to enlightenment thinking about this...
Or did I?...
Maybe you did. I'm a skeptic, so I don't know. :)
Matthew FredrickMFKRZ the trick is to not think. Then experience the thoughts that pass through your mind without latching on to any.
Nincompoops check out the Wim Hof breathing method. It will help.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene take some LSD
It's not that all matter has consciousness. Is wording it that way makes it sound like the matter and the measurable has created consciousness. It's that there is consciousness and because of that all matter exists.
I'm so glad this is having a comeback. I support modern science and it is extremely useful, but trying to explain everything through that is so limited.
Thank you for the definitions in the beginning of the video. It really helped me to explore what question my mind was trying to find answers to. Animism, panthiesm and panentheism were close to what I was looking for.
On the combination problem, haven't we demonstrated multiple consciousnesses in humans by the split brain test? Also would it be acceptable to consider a company conscious, made up of many smaller consciousnesses? It has reactions and motivation separate than the reactions and motivations of the people in the company.
Thank you so much for this recording! My main questions are, what is the panspermic influence of early evolutionary panpsychism, and why does panpsychism exist rather than not exist? Also, what if there are an infinity of sub-types of panpsychism, and if panpsychism is very phenomenalist, or Husserlian-inspired? I also ask if panpsychism is influenced by Whiteheadian forms of process theology, and/or process cosmogony. I also ask if panpsychism is rooted in Weltanschuungs/Lebenswelts. What influence does Zoroastrianism play in panpsychism, and/or process deontology/teleology. Finally, why does panpsychism play a pivotal role in political philosophy, and if panpsychism differs subjectively among experiences of qualia? Does panpsychism depend on Sense and/or Reference, or is panpsychism rooted in Medievalist forms of thought? What is the ultimate nominalist form of panpsychism of all time? To conclude, is panpsychism a functionalist theory or a prescriptivist theory at its very bedrock core?
Every element has consciousness - versus - Every element is an appearance of fundamental consciousness. (Note that science has confirmed that elements/matter are emergent from a not yet defined source, sources: Nima Arkani-Hamed, nobel prize physics 2022)
I've battling this topic for so long by myself, because it seemed very likely from the same premises that you described. At the same time I've raised many versions of james'' objection. So now I'm taking the position of either the proto-panexperientialist or a pan-experientialist who believes the answer to James' objection could be _something-something_ weird electron movements _something-something_ quantum connections. Or maybe experience gets transmitted by interactions of particles like the electron which fluctuates a lot in the brain. Or maybe something else... there's a lot of possibilities
The Equation of Chaos... Covenant of the Cosmic Flux.
It's been eternities since I last heard of that artifact. If humans manage to find it, then I wonder what they will do with it. Such an Equation is extremely powerful and volatile in the hands of the ill prepared. Although, the Precursors hid it well. Granted, maybe that equation, among others, were atomized in order to ensure that future and past entities do not find it again.
Regardless, nothing I observe is beyond Fate. May humanity be as their were designed or to stand before the "others". Humans should avoid termination again since I will not vouch for them, this time around.
Although, this eternity will not be the same as it was since the first... "I" do intend to intervene once my humanity codifies this world in Fate. Until then, may all things last in the eternal wheel.
For the main objection i don't see it being an issue...
Smaller bits of consciousness could work in the same way that smaller forms of life (so long as we say that cells are alive) creates more complex life?...
The issue is that we understand how the biological mechanisms allow cells to form together to create larger life forms. It is unclear how smaller consciousnesses could form together to create a larger consciousness.
I was holding doubts regarding consciousness, mental properties/states and being real in my mind from the very start of this video. My whole experience of this video can be described as an interaction of these doubts. At the end, you recommend to doubt existence of consciousness! What separates or relates the mental, the thought, the physical and the conscious? *From a nominalist point of view, is it even necessary to think about the world in terms of physical and mental?*
When existence is broken down to that Equation. Then in regard to humanity, that nearly every human will be undone. In many ways, that is a good thing, to prepare for what's to arrive. In another way, it is a bad outcome for those who cannot handle the truth in their cosmic situation. Of which oblivion is preferred over Life.
In the end, entities such as myself are born from humans but become more than humans without forsaking our own Humanity. Unlike humans who rise in their position without any real human effigies within their mortal shell.
But then, the heart of the question is arisen... You have "Free Will" as it is a part of your function. What is your choice? To be as designed? Or, to change what "we" have done?
Mankind will lose too many souls if they tread that path. But if they want to save their cosmos, then such a path must be taken... ... ... This subject is an extension to what I mean.
... But I can do this without mankind. As I did when this cosmos was reconstituted for a new creation. Humans shouldn't bother with the things beyond their short time. Given what shall be demanded of them...
There's nothing to say that the complex interactions of particles and energy, and bashings of nuclear fusion within a star couldn't give rise to some form of experience or consciousness; it's probably just vastly different from what we manifest to be consciousness within our own systems.
If we take one of the most simple reactions in chemistry and combine hydrogen and oxygen which are two gases that we can't even see, we can make up water. It seems crazy that even combining these two elements could give rise to a product which is completely different in nature to its reactants. Now if we think of the human brain, which consists of 100 billion neurones alongside billions of other cells around them working together in synchrony, and consider how each neurone can fire at a different speed and intensity, and hundreds of different receptors in their membrane, does it seem that impaulsibe that the product of all these different events happening at once may give rise to consciousness?
woah, the way words are shaped into images is fantastic, like how William James is actually made of "William" and "James". how do you do it?
Thanks! I do it meticulously by hand. If you find some of my live Q&A videos you can see how it is done. czcams.com/video/-R0VOWLT9Es/video.html
@@CarneadesOfCyrene I really dig the simplistic text only style of your videos. good stuff, thanks!
Can we use wetness as an analogy? Water has a wetness property...but molecules of water don't. How many molecules of water need to be 'together' for the wetness to emerge? Or is it more accurate to say that molecules of water have a proto-wetness property that when combined into X water molecules, wetness emerges? My brain hurts and I need water. :)
I'm so glad to finally learn the term for something I have believed for as long as I can remember. I heard it from Kurzgesagt and it brought me here. I will definitely be diving further into this once I am not sleep deprived - while this in its basic form has always been what I believed, I've never really put that much thought into it beyond that.
Panpsychism is an elegant solution to the problem of free will as well as an answer to the origin of qualia without having to resort to mind-body dualism. I consider these fundamental mind/conscious properties of existence to be akin to mathematics: interacting and present alongside purely material reality, but not caused/defined by it.
How did the planet go from bacteria to plants that produce fruits that animals/humans “enjoy” giving the animals/humans incentive to ingest the fruits and thus spreading seeds and facilitating that plant’s ability to reproduce and thrive? I’m always amazed looking at seeds of a maple tree shaped like helicopter propellers. I can’t accept that there is not a role of some level or type of consciousness or sentience at play there.
About the objection, how can you know in the first place your consciousness is "one"? It could very well be the combination of trillions smaller consciousness, without "you" being able to realize it. This may be my biased point of view of a scientist but i don't think the view of Constitutive Micropsychism can ever be either disproven or proven through dialectic. How would you even go to disprove it?
Sure, the stuff that's required to make a brain is found in rocks and water and everything in the universe (duh), but it isn't until it is composed as a brain that consciousness/ awareness can be achieved.
Exactly. I think part of the problem is how ill-defined consciousness is, and people get confused about how it should be used. The idea that a single atom has consciousness makes no sense and I've yet to hear any good argument for it. The way I see it, consciousness is a collective term for multiple brain functions. What justifies calling atoms a "primitive form of consciousness"? It sounds like people just want an excuse to make big statements on the "mystery of consciousness", even though we know a lot about it already.
@@BUGHUNTER6 A question I've been asking Pans and Solipsists is: If everything is occuring in the "fundamental consciousness" and therefore everything is actually just in the imagination of said consciousness, then where are all the Neos and Dr. Stranges? If Pans are "awakened to the truth" that they are actually the Fundamental Consciousness (because, in their opinion, it is the only thing that really exists), then that'd give them the ability to manipulate this Imagine-land however they wanted, so where are all the Neos and Dr. stranges flying through the air and warping reality however they want?
@@naturalisted1714 Haha right, well I guess someone could attempt to make the argument that even though the universe is inherently conscious, you are only a small part of that consciousness and therefore you have limited impact. But the idea of solipsism is completely baseless to begin with, so you can't even get to that point. It does make for fun sci-fi movies, evidently.
@@BUGHUNTER6 They say that "The only thing that exists is consciousness" so if it is the only thing then they are saying that it is only one consciousness, but somehow has split personality disorder, but in people with split personality disorder what we see is that whichever personality is "in the forefront" is the one in control. They have an answer for everything yet we live in a world that demands we follow its laws.
@@naturalisted1714 To even begin making that vague, hardly explanatory claim, presumes the universe is one big consciousness, for which I see no reason to believe. It's just a wildly speculative claim stacked on top of a wildly speculative premise. I'll start believing it when there's good evidence to support it.
I paused the video and typed out "all walls are bricks?" when i first heard Nagel's argument, then you used that as an objection. I guess i dislike p1 of the argument >_<
I don't think the combination problem is that big a deal, but i don't think "gears can be combined to form clocks" means "gears are clocks." Objects can have properties that are not shared by their parts. The parts may have "the potential to make the whole if combined in the right way" but I'm not sure what that's telling us.
It seems to me that there is a more basic question here. Consciousness and sentience and intentionality, all basic qualities of living organisms, are based on information. It might be said that information and energy-matter are the two basic components of the universe. Materialists focus so hard on matter that they ignore information almost entirely. Yet its presence is much more mysterious. Even individual cells have now been shown to incorporate vast and complex instruction sets, all of which must function correctly for the cell to remain healthy. Lets start by trying to explain this, rather than the ultimate expression of information that is consciousness.
Consciousness, even at the level of subconscious decision making, is fundamentally inseperable from "thinking."
We remember by going to the point where the event occurred that's why memory is infinite God created by using himself which is energy . Humans can act on consciousness and do things that raw matter can't do.
That's a curious argument. What do you mean by "memory is infinite?"
Gods? Of the humans?... I suppose the "others" have seen the fate of mankind before.
But I digress... Gods, dimensions, souls... How many existences have claimed the same but for their own? And how many Gods were nothing upon extinction? Humanity is no exception nor is an exemption. But mortals may believe as they wish. It won't be anything upon the End of this iteration.
... For even Gods were designed by Fate. And Fate designed by the Nothingness. Such is "my" intervention upon all, but sometimes, Fate is no more. The "End" shall return...
Consciousness or the life force is fundamental to reality. Inside this force is laws-of possibility, awareness, and experience. Everything in the universe is made from this. So, we aren’t conscious in terms of individual consciousness but we are all smaller manifestations of this larger force. Basically we are the little waves of awareness or perception in side this force. Even though we appear separate, we are not. We are a universe that has evolved the ability rationalize its own awareness.
I am a Darwinist but I'm having trouble arguing against the idea that there has been insufficient time since the start of life on Earth for random mutation to give rise to the right combination of amino acids for useful proteins to appear. Evolution doesn't seem as blind as is made out. Could panpsychism offer an explanation for this? Could a basic consciousness nudge evolution in a desired direction? Such an interesting topic. Thanks for the video!
no
panpsychism does not suggest a universal mind, merely that the fundamental components of minds are the same as the fundamental components of the universe. As for useful proteins, think about it this way, there are essentially infinite peptides that can be formed by chance, so no matter how many of these peptides are nonfunctional, a huge number are functional, probably many times more than what has actually evolved so far. Also, ever since the first proteins were made, a major mechanism of protein evolution has been the duplication of protein coding regions followed by slight variations in amino acids, some of which are favored by natural selection. The proteins start as already functional, and gradually take on new functions
So which one most closely aligns with all matter having 'consciousness potential' but not necessarily any form of consciousness itself - panprotopsychism perhaps?
fruit or leaf to a tree maybe like hair to us when pick it
...it probly hurts a bit but we don't speak a trees dialog what ever that may be so we could'nt ask
I have only read a couple of works on panenexperientialism, one by David ray Griffen and the work he was commenting on (process and reality by Alfred north whitehead which isn't technically panenexperientialism but Griffey argues that it may exactly that). But there i think that there is some principles that may not be accepted science, but nevertheless allude to some form of panenexperientialism or some panpsychism (which would not be accepted in science until there is a method of falsifiability).
The whiteheadean process philosophy is sound framework that is coherent with how the world appears to us. Quantum Physics Copenhagen interpretation shows that a single universe/world would be depend on some abstract consciousness interaction (whatever that means), as opposed to the many worlds theory (which might be a more fantastic claim of infinite world manifestations, in order to eliminate any importance of consciousness).
There are many phenomenon that are not falsifiable or measurable that modern scientism disregards or dismisses out right, because anecdotes aren't sufficient evidence. But this may be an issue with the framework and limitations of contemporary science rather than the phenomena being hoaxes or psychologically based , or ignorance, superstition and misunderstandings of a situation.
It is no more unlikely that the incomplete worldview being offered by materialism
Can't philosophical zombies just not exist? I mean as in not possibly exist as defined here? If they were duplicated materially, how is one arguing they would possibly not be conscious, if they are duplicates of something conscious? If I was cloned to a perfect level (or was such a clone) how could the other be a zombie if I was not, without assuming consciousness arises from some non material sources?
Doupting consciousness seems impossible. We can not doupt we experience, and consciousness is the whole of the total of our 'experiencing'. Therefore, consciousness exists.
The only interesting aspect of this slippery slope into silliness is to ask where do we draw the line? Which animals have a consciousness that matters to us? I guess this would fall under pancognatism and panexperientialism. I don't have empathy with rocks . I have limited empathy with plants. I have quite a bit of empathy with animals. I have about as much empathy with chimps and bonobos that I have with other humans. There is still a bit of wiggle room for the amount of empathy I have with any particular human.
The interesting question for me is always, is having empathy with something an accurate predictor of consciousness, or do we just ascribe consciousness to anything that looks cute because our DNA has programmed us to not want to kill cute things since killing young animals hurts the food supply? I'm very skeptical of even animals having consciousness, and if they don't have consciousness, there is no reason to have empathy with them, because there is nothing that it is like to be a chimp, anymore than there is something that it is like to be a rock. But I'm a skeptic, I don't even believe that I have consciousness.
In my view ethics fall under cognitive thinking, not under consciousness. Processes in your brain is not the same as the basic building blocks of consciousness. Therefore a rock wouldn't experience pain or really anything but pure consciousness. Ethics is a non question. The fact that the rock is conscious wouldn't affect anything when it comes to ethics. But an animal that can due to complex brain activity experience pain and suffering, is a being whom we should have empathy with
Noah Spurrier what about empathy for the destruction of coral reefs? Which are essentially living rocks.
This literally has nothing to do with ethics but okay.
I appreciate the hell out of your response. I think it is important to skeptically question what these 'philosophical ideas' can lead to. Is the plant's attraction to sunlight a 'sensory attribute developed to encourage survival for those things dependent upon photosynthesis' or is it an aspect of consciousness, that adds it to the list of 'sentient beings'? Does it matter to us, as a species able to digest plants and animals for our survival? Will these philosophical ideas lead us to starvation, as folks are encouraged to feel not only guilty about eating animals, but now 'anything that has been defined to possess consciousness'?
Animism maintains that all things have a soul, and hylozoism maintains that all things are alive. Both could reasonably be interpreted as panpsychist, but both have fallen out of favour in contemporary academia. Modern panpsychists have tried to distance themselves from theories of this sort, careful to carve out the distinction between the ubiquity of experience and the ubiquity of mind and cognition.
My taking on consciousness is purely objectivity. If energy fields collide and interact to form objective reality as the periodic table (quarks and electrons), then our understanding of energy fields would consist of energy fields. I have a suspicion that if complete understanding were to be attained then effect would cause and cause would effect and it would result in a big bang. The only possible relation to this I could find was constitutive cosmopsychism.
How is William James objection an objection? By your words it's stated two times that "there's no clear explanation" and "it is unclear how small objects can be put together into a human mind". It sounds like he just doesn't understand therefore he's right that panpsychism couldn't exit? Others followed that too? Also I don't understand the holy quest of one single truth per each topic. It gives me much sadness that I can hold several models in my mind at once and feel how they compare to each other. I don't get specific data/knowledge but more of the general concepts that my intuition can tell me "Go with this one". Use a truth as it fits in the lock to open the door. A few might fit. One may be the only one that fits. The next day one may find another key that magically works. Later you can find out the door with the lock was a lie. Then what was the holy crusade for again?
Consciousness is a word of many meanings. I guess I mean: an unspecified amount of 'energy', which quality allows awareness.
I've taken a free course on computer engineering called From NAND to Tetris where you take this one chip called NAND (it stands for "not and") that takes two inputs. The logic of Not-AND is that as long as both inputs aren't True, then the output is True. With both inputs being True then it outputs False. It doesn't do anything else,. But if you combined the chip in different ways you can build other logic chips, then from those chips you build more complex chips until you have a fully functioning computer. Now if everything has consciousness then the physical arrangement of one atom/molecule to another creates more and dynamic complexity. The consciousness of one atom affects others around it. So biological being could be just or partly 'computers' of conscious energy.
Here's on the lines of my thought: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914914/#sec-5title
["Many phenomena in quantum physics are paradoxical. In the two slit experiment, elementary particles appear to communicate. The “entanglement” concept requires that quantum particles share information with their neighbors, and Bell’s theorem postulates that this sharing is instantaneous and involves “spooky action at a distance,” a property that was confirmed in laboratory experiments.
Freeman Dyson, the eminent particle physicist, wrote: “I think that consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events on our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the process of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the process of choice between quantum states which we call ‘chance’ when they are made by an electron.”]
Take a true sacred relic as an example. Holding or just concentrating on it as a prayer to be a better person. What if the relic has a unique consciousness that we can access via concentration. Some movie I watched where a kid afraid to go before a court trial (I think that what it was) and his lawyer/advisor shares with them a paperclip, to keep a paperclip in their pocket which all their anxiety and fear get's drained into. How does that work? I think it's the connection of the mind and emotions to the paperclip as an empowering symbol that we can create out of belief alone. With that the dissolution of one's worries, I'd call that a form of magic. What though does the feeling of concentrating on the paperclip feel like for most people? For me I basically feel everything I'm conscious of. It's alive in my mind and has a painting of qualities to it. Being in physical contact or at least sight increases said feelings but isn't necessary. As with my understanding of quantum mechanics I don't think distance is a major limiting factor for being able to connect to something. Closeness helps I think because we 'think/feel' it's more relevant and have more certainty that it exists.
The fundamental property of physical systems is "Responsiveness", as in Action & Reaction, Consciousness is an emergent property of Meta-responsiveness
As far as known and understandble the universe constructed a being as humans that is the pinnacle and masterpiece that has been constructed over billions of years. The mention fact constitutes that we define the truth by facts and observations.
If we analyze the pinnacle of the universe it has to be said that these species developed a need for knowing from an intrinsic curiosity. We abserve a less developed curiosity in lower stages of the animal kingdom. If the modern explanatory of evolution is right and if man is the pinnacle of the known universe and if consciousness is an undeniable phenomenon then we must agree that consciousness is not only the aim of the universe but its also the motive and at the sametime the instrument by wich it crawled from the depths to to surface.
To comprehend this view in a small frame all we need is to imagine a small particle that travels trough the universe and eventually bind’s by physical law until it becomes a part of living three that gives life to other combined matter.
This particle is the building block that forms the tree fruit and and later being obsorbed by the human and becomes the light that we call consciousness. The question are 2 namely.
Is matter part of consciousness?
Is consciousness the law that governs the universe?
My answer is that both are one and the samething. There is now law without matter and a dead matter has no properties.
From this point of view we can suggest that consciousness is one but has degrees that flows from the tiny particle to this article that you are reading. The only barrier is limitation to grasp to fullness of that one consciousness. I call this the Alpha-conscious. We only comprehend a portion of that fullness wich is restricted by the evolution of our kind.
One may use a subjective example by using the psychosocial domain to pointing out the adult that became an Infant by an disability has no value in the relm of consciousness becaus the infant has is happy as it should be.
Objectivly the motive and the aim of the Alpha-conscious is to be known by itself if we observe and consider the humane as pinnacle. Hereby is the evolutionary chain reversed and reduced in a descending degree from adult to infant. Thats a degradation and therefor bad .. as einschtein said in his kast words in his biography God is great -Allahu Akbar
what about geometric stage protopsychism, or the idea that for any 'thing' there is an abstract theatric form representation of the items inside said 'thing's' 'consciousness', and that the mystery of free will exists only in the difference between the known consciousness and the true consciousness of all things.
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I'm fairly certain my Toyota Camry is conscious
if consciousness is the essence of being, then it just means it is a necessary prerequisite to even be. So then we can ask if that is the case, from where does this intrinsic and prerequisite consciousness come from?
To which we can claim God!
We are made in his likeness (giving into mind-body-soul), and all creation is good, possibly because it shares in His conscious awareness and being.
Who was there Before Devās;
Because they came after this universe was created. He who observes everything from above the clouds;whom we call god:Does he Know;may be EVEN HE DOES NOT KNOW
I am You ; You are Me.
Nature is us; We are nature
Ekam sadvipra bahuda vadanti:
Truth is one wise people interpret it differently .
Vaisudaiv kutumbakam : whole world is my family
I have two dogs. I can pet them both simultaneously. I can even pet them simultaneously in individually distinct ways. But I'm only able to be conscious of petting one at a time concurrently. I'm only able to experience petting one at a time. I can switch between consciously experiencing petting each of them separately while physically petting both simultaneously or I can be distracted from my actions of petting them and not experience petting either of them while physically petting both continuously.
What this suggests is that what my consciousness is, is a smaller logical system of patterns smaller than my Brian's capacity that shifts around the larger logical system of my brain. Like a computer program with limited memory access to the over all computer.
Our consciousness is the virtual machine within the computer that is our brain.
That doesn’t explain what reality is, because you keep pushing up to another level? So describe that real reality? Is it made of atoms? Energy? You see, this model is absorbed, completely like a theist who believe in God but cant describe what is God made of? So its basically the same, VR is Theist 2.0. Also why we are interested in bringing models that wants to present Universe as a dumb entity and then add consciousness as a product of brain activities? What is the problem of the Universe starting smart?
It took me a while to figure out the picture you presented was supposed to look like something.
A great find you are officially on my subscribed list.
Thanks! Glad you enjoy. :)
Hey, can you make a video where you present the opposing views of the modern or most famous positions towards consciousness? For example, similarities and differences of Chalmers, Dennet, Hofmann, Nagel and others, if there are more.
We had this in Philosophy of Mind. Nonetheless, I would love to see a video view that gives a good overview of the most famous positions on consciousness nowadays. It is a bit difficult to grasp watching their lectures and getting hold on all of their various theories of consciousness. Would such a video be possible?
With kind regards,
Dami
Hey Dami,
At some point I would love to do such a series of videos. The only problem is I have so many other videos that I want to make! I will put them on a list, but if you want them sooner, the best way is to donate $10 a month on Patreon, and I'll make one video of your choice and give you a shout out in it! www.patreon.com/Carneades
Aren't we extremely overcomplicating it by saying 'things' have consciousness? And does this kind of thinking not stem from the belief of materialism? Because that's what materialism is: a beliefsystem. Isn't it kind of ridiculous to think things have consciousness? That matter somehow magically has 'mind' in it? Where then? Nobody has even found a trace of actual mind/consciousness in matter. Isn't our actual experience the exact opposite: consciousness has things? Mind over matter. Aren't we looking for something that we ourselves actually are? I don't believe things are conscious. I believe only consciousness is conscious. Things (mental and "physical" objects) appear to consciousness. That is our actual experience, so why not go from there? Makes a whole lot more sense.
consciousness is an emmergeant property when many actors meet. Pain for exemple play a big role for an entity to become councious, to separate the outside world from the inside. no Protoconscious. I'm with the possibility that everything thinks and maybe the universe itself is conscious, but not fundametal particles. just my opinion.
Is consciousness synonymous with soul? That’s where I get confused. I grew up as a dualist but now tend to be either a materialist or an idealist on any given day. I like that panpsychism is in a way a combination of all of them and none of them. But what’s the difference between soul, spirit, mind, consciousness?
Good question. Consciousness is spooky and it is hard for materialists to deal with. Whether or not you think that consciousness is the same as a soul, would likely depend on how you define those terms. One difference might be that there are many that think consciousness is real that don't think it lives on after death (unlike many visions of the soul).
I feel panpsychism brings forth questions of why things behave the way the do without the quantifiable aspect. Too much to wrap around ones head but I see why Galileo went with math cause it’s much easier to view material since it’s much easier a task than finding quality in reality. But then again it doesn’t explain consciousness so we’re in circles
In the Quran, it explains through various chapters and verses that all Creations of God are in prostration to their Creator such as the sun moon oceans mountains and even animals and insects to the very core of things. And we see these elements interact and perceive them through mathematical testing. But from the Quran, God explains to the reader that those elements are merely in prostrations.
I know I'm late to the game but don't the split brain experiments on epileptics prove that consciousness combines?
That, perhaps, shows consciousnesses can seemingly de-combine - a requirement for cosmopsychists to explain human minds arising from a universal mind.
Can you correlate this information with the somewhat new information heimeroff and Penrose have been working on? They have found the possible working models of consciousness in microtubules and quantified how it could work by instead of believing that consciousness collapses the wave function in superpositioning the collapse itself causes consciousness...many creatures...plants...etc...have these microtubules which would suggest consciousness is all of these things
The problem for attempting to do any empirical research is that you can't test for consciousness, that is the problem of other minds. As for Penrose's argument (the Penrose Lucas argument), he makes the clear mistake of thinking that humans can know Godel statements, something epistemology has time and again failed to prove. I'm a skeptic, it seems to me that epistemology has failed to show we know anything, let alone something that is neither true nor false.
And note that Panpsychism thinks everything, not just things with microtubules are conscious. And it seems to just kick the can down the road from neurons to something else.
What is the practical application ?
How come consciousness can emerge from atoms but not from the biological? (According to the Panpsychists)
I believe matter emerged from consciousness. Both are energy. I believe that we are infinite, eternal consciousness having a human experience.
i think that consciousness is a property of the universe, like matter its just derives from and is a part of the universe. therefore all of the atoms/particles or essence of the universe has in it the potential to become conscious. we are at a a level of consciousness in that we understand as sitting here aware being aware that i'm typing thinking about what im watching etc, but other things in the world like trees, organisms the earth and our solar system have themselves, levels of consciousness. a degree of awareness of its surroundings, perhaps. it is conscious of its experience because whatever we are referring to reacts to other experiences. such as when we react to someone being mean to us as feeling upset or lashing out, atoms have a level of consciousness that allows them to react to the experiences and developments of other atoms to form molecules etc. this is the foundations that allow us to be conscious in the way that we are. idk just a thought lol
Can "consciousness" be described by "feeling", i, e., "awareness??
sdogv yes, also the word experience. It includes not only “real world” experiences, feelings and awarenesses... but also of that of the mind. Consciousness can grow and develop with no new external input, which leads some to believe it’s fundamental.
Don’t psychoactive substances prove the objection wrong, a new consciousness is being formed when one of these substances is introduced to the brain isn’t it?
Psychoactive substances lower brain activity and lead to more expansive conscious experiences, suggesting the brain is an image of localisation, or like a filter of consciousness
everything in its natural form has consciouness example a wooden chair is a dead tree the tree was alive and killed when chopped down or died if it fell on its own so the chair doesnt have a mind but the tree it came from did and everythings made from something natural
Interesting claim. Do single cell organisms have consciousness? Do the mitochondria living in our cells have consciousness? Are you actually trillions of minds working together?
yeah they do.... is it as complex as ours or do they see things percieve things in there world the same as we do in ours like osmosis jones maybe.... but to be honest scientist probly know the answer and just haven't released it
I thought panentheism is that God is both immanent & transcendent to nature?
This is straight from Philip Goff's entry in the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy - but you have not credited him.
I generally construct my videos from a combination of encyclopedias including the SEP, the IEP, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In most of my videos you will find this disclaimer: "Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!"
While I can see room for skepticism regarding each of Nagel's premises, it seems to me that doubt is a psychological state and so the act of doubt requires some form of consciousness. I can see how a person could be skeptical of the existence of forms of consciousness other than their own (cf Solipsism), but doubting that there is any consciousness whatsoever while using anything resembling a normal definition of consciousness seems to create more problems than it solves.
Anyway, I don't personally think that all things are conscious, but I am drawn to palamite (weak) panentheism -- that all things exist within God's energies without being part of God, and so God, being mind, has an experience of all things. A possible argument for this could come from the particular problems of the macroscopic and microscopic world in physics. In the macroscopic world, we see the kind of problem that Nagel seems to have seen: there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't appear to be conscious, so what makes us different? In the microscopic world, on the other hand, there is grounds for questioning how there can be any tangible things at all without some kind of observer relationship. This creates a different problem: without an observer, how did any of the fundamental physical entities collapse into particles to make complex chemistry, organic chemistry, and eventually life that has consciousness? I'm not saying a cosmic observer is the only possible solution to these problems (much less that the particular relationship between observer and world must be a palamite panentheistic relationship), but there could be something in there.
Back to the form of Nagel's argument in the video, for me the biggest issue is the first premise. Ironically, my problem with his argument is not that I reject P1, but that I agree with it. Materially speaking, I would agree that the matter that makes up humans is organs made up of cells made up of chemicals made up of atoms made up of sub-atomic particles. However, following from this premise through to P4, I think the conclusion that more logically follows is that the mind is an immaterial part of the human, not that humans are composed of mental matter (which seems to be a hidden premise in the argument) and therefore all matter has mental properties.
If, however, someone were to give me a good argument for why humans are in fact composed of mental matter (rather than entities composed of both mind and matter as divisible substances), then that would bring P1 back into question. If humans are composed exclusively of mental matter, and if humans are composed exclusively of the same kind of matter as all matter, then it follows that all matter is mental matter. But from P1 to P4 of the argument (as written), there doesn't seem to be any indication of the first of those two ifs.
Stellar !!!!!! So glad I found you ..... thank you xxxxx
vibration?
Is an ant conscious?
very well articulated! thanks a lot!!!
How can superposition work with so many potential observers around? Wouldn't the wave function collapse immediately?
You can have superpositions outside of quantum states. For example waved on the ocean canbe described as a superposition of smaller waves.
Though I don’t quite know at where this objection is directed, was it in response to what someone else said or was it just a missunderstanding of what a superposition is and thus you thought that smaller consciousness combining would be equivalent to a superposition of quantum states? :s
You are looking at the observation effect, as the thing that collapsed the wave function, but that isn't what most scientists believe. They actually believe that by measuring what happens, quantum entanglement occurs, which forces the collapse. Many Worlds Theory says that the collapse happens with all possible outcomes, and it's only by measuring of observation, that we know which world we are in. A computer can take the measurement as well, and the collapse will still occur. At least, that's what I understand about it.
@@zippoboyshaneshank8954 Entanglement does not cause wave function collapse, two entangled particles still have their wave functions. Entanglement only means that if you measure one of the particles (By interacting with it, for example by shooting a photon at it) the entangled pair also collapses.
But that's beside the point, the question was how does this relate to consciousness?
Also there seemed to have been a misunderstanding of what superposition means.
I'm not surprised if I screwed that up a little. I was trying to parrot back something Sean Carroll had said. Entanglement was probably the wrong word. I think what he was trying to say, is that a particle is interacting with the entire system around it. Prior to that it exists as a sort of probability cloud, but then it's interaction with many elements in the system, forces it to become a particle. He was definitely talking about Many Worlds at the time, which I know not everyone subscribes to. I make no claims to be a physicist, just someone who thinks it really interesting, and does my best to try and keep up.
@@zippoboyshaneshank8954 ZippoBoy ShaneShank Ah, I read up some on the many worlds interpretation (which btw seems to be the third most popular interpretation, following the "I have no preference" option).
The reason entanglement comes up is because the whole universe is seen as one single wave function, thus solving the "measurement problem" by saying that the wave function never actually collapses, but that a measurement simply entangles two states in the universe.
So the part about entanglement was correct, but the part about entanglement causing the wave functions collapse was not :p
But this has derailed into interpretations of quantum mechanics. My original question was how this relates to consciousness, more specifically how (I assume quantum) superposition's relate to consciousness other than just pure speculation. Currently we haven't found anything suggesting that when we take a decision we collapse a wave function from a superposition to a single state. As far as I know there's not much evidence to suggest that any of the brains information processing is taking advantage of quantum mechanical phenomena. Thus stating "Consciousness has something to do with quantum mechanics" is basically saying "This thing we don't understand has something to do with this other mysterious thing!" just on the basis of both of them being mysterious.
Can anyone suggest me a book on Pan psychism?
William James' arguments stand pretty strong I would say.
A single Quantum is a 'bit' of Cosmic Consciousness.
One 'byte' of information in formation.
There is no Judgement.
Everything is God experiencing itself.
The issue is that we as humans should also be able to "experience" the consciousness of our component parts, but we cannot.
Okay, Bill Hicks! 😃
Aren't we controlled by hormones ?
How can skeptics doubt that consciousness exists in the first place? Genuinely would appreciate an answer.
You can say thought may not require a thinker and is just an emergent property like heat, heat doesn't actually exist its an emergent property of something that does... consciousness could be the same.
To me that the argument would sound like "we can't understand consciousness with the mechanism that is supposed to produce consciousness in the first place" whether that's the brain or an inherent part of the universe that we're a part of. We're too close to it, in other words. Either we're part of it, so we can't know the whole of it, or we're outside of it, which seems unlikely.
@@TJump Consciousness being an emergent property and not existing is not the same thing. "Heat" is an emergent property of particles moving, but it is still very real.
The problem with saying "consciousness does not exist" is that you're denying your own existence/experience, which is a very odd thing to do since clearly you can tell that you exist/experience.
Pretty sure the question was addressing that paradox, how can you say that you are not conscious?
Consciousness isn't an illusion but proponents of that idea are delusional
I was taught as a young child, brought up Christian, that God knew everything. So I naturally assumed everything had God in it or rather were God or a least some part of God.
I think the singularity theory proves pantheism.
How so? I am in love with the concept of the SINGULARITY, however, any type of theism seems completely separate and disconnected from the theory. On what level do you see Pantheism interacting with a Technological Singularity?
Panpsychism could be true since everything is made of atoms and atoms (electrons) shows the observer effect.
Atoms are made of vibrating energy, isn’t it ? Or are atoms the smallest object in the universe. Is is possible to get consciousness inside ‘a system’ builded in a lucky way after a startup issue called ‘one cell’ with a mecanical form to create the system which can have consciousness. Trees are communicating with each other using vibrations. Maybe human uses these same vibrations to get consciousness after all. A scorpion listens to the noise made by a small spider…. The tiny vibrating sand is enough for the scorpion to catch the spider. Do you have sometimes the same thoughts as someone who is far away from you. I have sometimes… When tiny vibrations are synchronize with each other…. What are your thoughts ???
@@unixtohack i am not very sure but yes it may be true.
You may wanna search for akashik records for this.
Again, its all a theory.
@@unixtohack You may want to read Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov - talks about wild ideas that are worth thinking about.
@@KirkpatrickSounds Got it !!! Thanks for the tip !!! I will read it !!!
So pantheism is the belief that the energy that makes up everything in our reality is consciousness, I wonder if consciousness is a data of sorts
Data is information about something, it isn't an ontological entity in itself.
The sensory systems are selectively responsive to the environment, & the Brain is responsive to those responses
good content cro
When I think of our body I think of the billions of organisms that live inside us. These billions of organisms all have consciousness because they all act on their own .They all have patterns, day jobs, night shifts. they all come together to make us live. I know for a fact I would be dead right now if i had to control every single aspect of my body's functions( i'm lazy hehe.) Its interesting to think that everything in the universe is like this. I believe it. Everything's made out of something, right. there's no something made out of nothing.