TPF : Evidence for Panpsychism
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:53 am
What constitutes evidence of consciousness?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/816183
As a panpsychist I have been asked a few times for evidence of consciousness in rocks and other such objects. — bert1
I'm currently re-reading Peter Ells' 2010 book, Panpsychism, because he discusses in detail many controversial topics that arise in philosophical metaphysics of Consciousness. One aspect of his terminology is puzzling to me though. Ells asserts that "experiential entities are the fundamental entities of idealist panpsychism". Although he is very explicit in his definitions of other terms, he seems to take the existence of "experiential entities" as a given or essential axiom. Is the word "experiential" in this usage, a metaphor for conscious human subjective experience? Or does he really believe that atoms are literally aware of their environment? Where does the Psyche (mind) come-in to this equation?
I presume that minimal "experience"*1 means to sense (to be affected by) incoming energy/information . And ultimately perhaps to make sense (meaning) of that data. If so, in what sense does a grain of sand experience its environment? Maybe a physical meaning of "to experience" is to undergo change due to a causal event. But how does that kind of experience add-up to the kind of human experience that we call "knowledge" or "memory" or "psychic" experience? Again, I can understand Brainless Experience as a metaphor for inputs & outputs of energy. But Ells seems to view it more literally as something equivalent to human cognition.
I should mention that my own understanding of fundamental entities in the world acknowledges that they exchange energy/information with their environment, and they record that input/output as a change in the material form (e.g. temperature ; structure ; position) of the object, but without gaining any conceptual knowledge that I would call meaningful "experience". For example, a grain of sand might be moved in location by the impact of momentum from another object. But, is the grain consciously aware of that moment in its history? I suspect that a lot of the incredulity toward Panpsychism hinges on such ambiguous terminology.
PS___As a panpsychist, Ell's assumes that Consciousness (experience) is fundamental to the world. But since objective evidence for such Awareness only appeared on the scene after billions of years of evolution --- the emergence of Living & Thinking things with centralized brains of some kind*2 --- I began to refer to proto-consciousness in terms of Information Theory. As the "power to enform", that prototype of Cognition is equivalent to physical Potential Energy, which can transform into actual Mass/Matter. But as the world evolved & complexified, a new form of Generic Energy/Information emerged as what we call "Mind" : an immaterial function (activity) of material brains.
*1. To Experience : (philosophy)
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience
*2. I must admit that, in microscopic videos of brainless single cell organisms, they appear to know what they are doing, as they search for food. But a scientist might say the appearance is due to anthropomorphic interpretation of blind mechanical inputs & outputs, as a human would experience it.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/816183
As a panpsychist I have been asked a few times for evidence of consciousness in rocks and other such objects. — bert1
I'm currently re-reading Peter Ells' 2010 book, Panpsychism, because he discusses in detail many controversial topics that arise in philosophical metaphysics of Consciousness. One aspect of his terminology is puzzling to me though. Ells asserts that "experiential entities are the fundamental entities of idealist panpsychism". Although he is very explicit in his definitions of other terms, he seems to take the existence of "experiential entities" as a given or essential axiom. Is the word "experiential" in this usage, a metaphor for conscious human subjective experience? Or does he really believe that atoms are literally aware of their environment? Where does the Psyche (mind) come-in to this equation?
I presume that minimal "experience"*1 means to sense (to be affected by) incoming energy/information . And ultimately perhaps to make sense (meaning) of that data. If so, in what sense does a grain of sand experience its environment? Maybe a physical meaning of "to experience" is to undergo change due to a causal event. But how does that kind of experience add-up to the kind of human experience that we call "knowledge" or "memory" or "psychic" experience? Again, I can understand Brainless Experience as a metaphor for inputs & outputs of energy. But Ells seems to view it more literally as something equivalent to human cognition.
I should mention that my own understanding of fundamental entities in the world acknowledges that they exchange energy/information with their environment, and they record that input/output as a change in the material form (e.g. temperature ; structure ; position) of the object, but without gaining any conceptual knowledge that I would call meaningful "experience". For example, a grain of sand might be moved in location by the impact of momentum from another object. But, is the grain consciously aware of that moment in its history? I suspect that a lot of the incredulity toward Panpsychism hinges on such ambiguous terminology.
PS___As a panpsychist, Ell's assumes that Consciousness (experience) is fundamental to the world. But since objective evidence for such Awareness only appeared on the scene after billions of years of evolution --- the emergence of Living & Thinking things with centralized brains of some kind*2 --- I began to refer to proto-consciousness in terms of Information Theory. As the "power to enform", that prototype of Cognition is equivalent to physical Potential Energy, which can transform into actual Mass/Matter. But as the world evolved & complexified, a new form of Generic Energy/Information emerged as what we call "Mind" : an immaterial function (activity) of material brains.
*1. To Experience : (philosophy)
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience
*2. I must admit that, in microscopic videos of brainless single cell organisms, they appear to know what they are doing, as they search for food. But a scientist might say the appearance is due to anthropomorphic interpretation of blind mechanical inputs & outputs, as a human would experience it.
