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Posted by don salmon on Apr 12, 2012, 3:55pm

Hi Andy (conversation continued from the thread, "The Richard Wiseman Challenge").

I'm actually interested in understanding what you mean by panpsychism I've read Christian de Quincey on this, as well as several of David Ray Griffin's books. I've also read Mary Midgley's critique of panpsychism. I don't understand what "matter" means in the mind-matter connection that panpsychists propose. I don't see how it solves the problem of why materialists feel the need to posit a mind-independent matter I know that almost all Buddhist and Hindu philosophies speak of the world as an interaction of spirit and matter, but what they mean by "matter" has no relation, as far as I understand, with the post 18th century notion of purely dead matter.

So let me take the "Andy Smith challenge. Without disputing anything you say, let me see if I can understand what you mean by panpsychism, and try also to understand how you see it as solving the problems I brought up in the other thread.

(I also hope this might provide a model for what I hope to see over in the other thread - a sincere attempt to enter into a point of view with which one disagrees - and please call me on it if I don't do it well)

Thanks!

Posted by Andy Smith on Apr 12, 2012, 7:38pm

Matter to panpsychists is basically the same thing it is to materialists, except that consciousness is one of its fundamental properties, like mass or charge. Here are the advantages of panpsychism, as I see it:

1) one avoids the problem of explaining how consciousness emerges from the brain;
2) one preserves all the major benefits of materialism, i.e., all the phenomena that science currently can predict/explain using materialism;
3) As I alluded to in the other thread, it might be possible to condense all the major puzzles into one. Panpsychism, as I noted there, offers an explanation for questions 1 and 5. Questions 2 and 3 might be merged, in view of the fact that most of the laws that Weinberg is referring to are based in parameters that are associated with matter. That is, the question would become, how did matter with these particular properties originate. Then, since in the panpsychist view consciousness is another one of these properties, we just add that to the question. A more complex question, to be sure, but that we can formulate it in this way suggests that all the answers we seek are at this one point. Indeed, some scientists suggest that if consciousness is a fundamental aspect of matter, it might explain how at least some of those parameters became tuned to just the degree necessary for further evolution of the universe to be possible.

Among the major criticisms of panpsychism are 1) difficulty in understanding what consciousness would mean at the level of, say, an atom; 2) the combination problem, how a large number of weakly consciousness forms of matter could combine to result in a highly conscious organism; and 3) the completeness problem, why, if matter is conscious, we do not see evidence of this, i.e., situations where its properties are altered or affected by consciousness. I have discussed these in Dimensions of Experience. I won’t go over them here, but in a nutshell, I think 1) is the most serious, but may simply reflect our lack of understanding.

I don’t see any inconsistency between panpsychism and Eastern views of consciousness, and FWIW, neither does Wilber apparently. That is, it can be consistent with either materialism or an Eastern view in which a higher level of consciousness is prior or ultimate. It could be consistent with the existence of psi, that is, if compelling evidence of psi were announced tomorrow, it would not refute the possibility of psi.

As I said before, in the other thread, I don’t understand why you assume that others are not making a sincere effort to enter into a different point of view. Yes, we all have our blind spots, we all have a limited perspective, but that doesn’t stop people from making an effort to consider things from a perspective or set of assumptions different from the one they are comfortable with. You seem to believe that most scientists and philosophers refuse out of sheer stubbornness to entertain a view that might be more fruitful for them than the one they currently hold. I’m sure there’s some of that going on, but the situation is not so simple as you seem to imply.

And of course to refer to their perspective as “the one” ignores that there is an enormous diversity in scientific/philosophical opinion. The contrast between panpsychists and materialists is one example.

Posted by Andy Smith on Apr 12, 2012, 7:40pm

Sorry, meant to say, "it would not refute the possibility of panpsychism."

Posted by don salmon on Apr 12, 2012, 8:40pm

Hi Andy:

I don't mean to assume anything; I personally haven't seen this experiment attempted, which is why i'm requesting it be tried. if you can point me to it, I'd love to see it.

Honestly!

Meanwhile I still don't understand what you mean by matter, and how it helps to make the assumption there is some kind of matter "out there" (even if associated with some kind of mentality or consciousness. I don't understand why, if our direct experience is one of various sensory images (qualia if you like) in a field of awareness, why we need to violate ockham's razor by assuming matter outside any field of awareness. That's what I find baffling. I don't mean to be difficult, I just don't understand it. I don't see how panpsychism helps; it seems to sneak in some kind of matter like something outside of awareness altogether which somehow mysteriously has mind like properties.

What do you mean by "matter"?

Posted by don salmon on Apr 12, 2012, 8:44pm

hi again - I'm going to make a leap here, an assumption from our past conversations .

you may be tring to figure out what I'm implying or assuming. I'm really not trying to be difficult. I honestly and sincerely don't know what people in the last several centuries - paricularly sicne the 19th century - mean by "matter". It makes no sense to me, either in the dualist or panpsychist as well as materialist philosophy. I find myself even more baffled by what philosophers of the last few centuries mean by "mind" - none of these concepts seem to me to be derived from direct knowledge or awareness; they seem to be abstract concepts arrived at through speculation and I don't understand what they have to do with the real world.

Again, if you're not sure what I mean, ask me and don't assume I'm assuming or implying anything. I don't think the forms we call 'matter" are an illusion either, as I am not a non dualist in the vedantic (or at least, advaita vedantic) tradition.

There, I think I've eliminated most of the philosohpies people might think I hold.

So without any assumption,s help me -

what do you mean by "matter" - where it is, what is it made of, how do we find it, how do we determine what it is or what it does? (I have spoken to physicists about this, by the way, and haven't heard a definition that makes sense to me). So maybe you can help?

Posted by Andy Smith on Apr 13, 2012, 12:03am

Panpsychism is not inconsistent with the idea that there is no matter outside of some awareness of it. In the panpsychist view, the first matter of the universe was to some extent aware of itself and perhaps aware of other matter. Where it might be inconsistent with your view is that such matter could still exist outside of something else’s awareness. IOW, a panpsychist universe is like a human society (as understood by science) in that everyone has awareness, and is also in someone else’s awareness but nevertheless everyone also exists outside of everyone else’s awareness.

Do you have a problem with this? If you do, I assume you are an idealist. That you believe that matter, or the phenomena we call matter, are created by consciousness. But I thought I recalled your denying that you are an idealist?

There are many criticisms of idealism, but some of them are fairly specific to the kind of idealism, as there are different types. No point in getting into any of these before I know more about what you are proposing. As I said, I thought you said you were not advocating idealism.

Posted by don salmon on Apr 13, 2012, 6:03am

Hi Andy:

That's helpful. Look I probably am being difficult. If I adopt a more conventional view of panpsychism and materialism, I have no trouble with your conclusions. Panpsychism, in the way you present it, retains the valuable parts of materialism, and I would then even go further than I think you went and say that with panpsychism added on, it solves all the questions I raised.

Posted by don s on Apr 16, 2012, 3:37pm

hi, after thinking about Andy's interesting comments, I thought of something that might clarify things.

I had suggested that psi might shed some light on things like random mutations. Andy said we don't need psi for that, we already have an explanation.

I thought perhaps this might make the suggestion clearer.

Starting from Richard Wiseman's claim - that the "big 4" - remote viewing, psychokinesis, telepathy and precognition - have been proven by methods used in all other areas of science, the more detailed version of this question would be:

If mind body effects go far beyond what we now know - that is, if psychokinesis is true, and the consciousness of an organism can change the genome in virtually unlimited ways

and

if telepathy occurs, even though we have a hard time measuring it, and all organisms belonging to a particular species engage - even for a fraction of their lives - in some kind of global, non sensory-mediated communication,

and

if remote viewing occurs, and these members of a particular species, by means of supra spatio-temporal communication, synchronize the psychokinetic/mind body effects on the "collective" genome, and in addition, in a kind of "Baldwin" behavioral evolutionary move, travel to various environments which support the psychokinetically induced mutation(s),

might that have even an infinitesimal effect on what we now take to be a "complete" explanation for evolutionary mutations?

I don't know if that makes it any clearer. This is a particularly interesting one, I think; even if this seems like ridiculous, occult nonsense, just engaging in this thought experiment for fun (and it doesn't require hours of thought or "belief") might help us understand why Richard Wiseman and other skeptics like him thing that extraordinary evidence is required for psi to be accepted; in fact, it might help us understand why somethign like psi which is taken for granted by a majority of humanity (including some nobel prize laureates) is thought to be "extraordinary" by skeptics.

Posted by don s on Apr 16, 2012, 3:40pm

one further elaboration on the last point - actually, according to a number of experts in scientific methodology, the standards for psi research are considerably superior to those in all other areas of science. My understanding is that at most, only 50% of physics experiments could be replicated if they were held to the same standards as psi research. As for psychology and medicine, they would fare far worse. And not just replication - if the standards for methodology and potential of fraud that are maintained for psi were exacted on the other areas of science, we would hardly have any acceptable science research at all. At least, that's what some experts in scientific methodology have said that I've heard about (yes, one of them is Rupert Sheldrake, which I assume most skeptics think of as a fraud, but I think if you google his name, you may not have too much trouble finding other more mainstream experts who agree with him)

Posted by don s on Apr 16, 2012, 3:59pm

anticipating one possible objection - Anon, you might be concerned again that I'm wrongly assuming that nobody has asked this kind of question. Just to repeat my previous clarification - they may have, and I don't mean to be saying they haven't. I'm only saying I have never seen it put quite this way. I was inspired enough by your challenge to pick up Dean Radin's Conscious Universe and the 2003 Journal of Consciousness Studies issue, "Psi Wars", in which psi researchers and psi debunkers duked it out. I couldn't find anything along the lines of what I'm asking here in Radin's book (some 250+ pages) and in the 264 Psi Wars issue, I did find one paragraph that alludes to what I'm asking.

Noted debunker James Alcock lists a dozen or so objections to psi, and on this particular page, he said psi is objectionable because it conflicts with other sciences. Ahh, perhaps this is what I'm looking for, I thought - he brought up the old objection about the "inverse square law" which goes back at least as far as Einstein - though Einstein was considerably more open to psi possibiliites than Alcock - and his only other example was that neuroscience research shows that consciousness is not possible with minimal brain activity, and therefore psi phenomena like NDEs in which people gain veridical experience of information outside the range of their senses is impossible.

Hmmmm, that's kind of vaguely related, but to be fair, he's just kind of restating the obvious implications of NDES, not really saying how brain research would be changed (or our understanding of the brain might be changed) if we accept Wiseman's assessment of psi research and playfully hypothetically consider what things might be like if there really were such a thing as anomalous cognition (i.e. psi).

hope that doesn't obfuscate things to much!:>))

Posted by don s on Apr 16, 2012, 4:00pm

sorry, in the previous post, that should have been "the 264 page Psi Wars issue"

Posted by gpiacenza on May 16, 2012, 1:26pm

Matter & Mind can take distinct appearances but still be within each other as each other. They arise from the possibilities given by what is called "consciousness" which ultimately cannot be defined. There's mind in physical matter or as physical matter as its inevitable correlate. There's mind in subtle matter or as subtle matter as its inevitable correlate and the same goes for the third main realm of seed causes and principles. The sense of self consciousness "ahamkara" can experience and use any of the three realms, of their vehicles and their minds. 'It' can retain a self sense even if acquiring the characteristics of mind relative to each realm by projecting 'its' creative experiential actualizing force onto the vehicles 'it' identifies with for each realm. 'It' can make them interact as ultimately without that sense of a separate self, they are 'its' projections. Dualism, materialism, pansychism, spiritualism-idealism are logically compatible in an Integral view.

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