You are right. The discussions on the subject of First Cause can go forever. As those about the concept of time and a lot more. — Alkis Piskas
That's why I started this spin-off from the depleted First Cause thread. But most respondents, so far, seem to have missed the point of this new thread : to discuss, not the First Cause, but
a mid-evolution Effect : the origin of Consciousness in an ever-changing physical world. Perhaps I should have titled the thread : "Origin of Consciousness", but "First Concept" seemed to be more to the point.
Panpsychism*1 & Idealism assume that Consciousness was inherent in the world, from the beginning or from eternity, whichever came first. However,
"First Concept" is not about chatty atoms, but about the early signs of self-aware mentation in the only animals we know have language to discuss abstract concepts.
Materialism*2 also assumes that the potential for Consciousness is inherent in the natural world, but not in the form of a supernatural God or Cosmic Mind or sentient Atoms. If so,
what was the fundamental form of matter that produced thinking beings?
With these essential problems in mind, I was hoping to stimulate a discussion on how both of those presumptions might explain the
eventual evolutionary emergence of abstract conceptualizers, such as posters on TPF could have evolved from nothingness or from eternal matter. For Panpsychism the crux would be the Combination Problem*3. For Materialism, the key issue might be
what form proto-consciousness might take in evolution of Consciousness*4.
Do you have any ideas to contribute to a forum of mostly amateur philosophers with varying degrees of scientific background? There may be other sub-categories of Consciousness theories, but they would seem to
boil down to primacy : fundamental Mind versus elemental Matter. Thoughts?
*1.
Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness did not evolve to meet some survival need, nor did it emerge when brains became sufficiently complex. Instead it is inherent in matter — all matter.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/p ... cycles-are
*2.
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
*3.
Combination Problem :
Nevertheless, panpsychism is subject to a major challenge: the combination problem. This is
roughly the question: how do the experiences of fundamental physical entities such as quarks and photons combine to yield the familiar sort of human conscious experience that we know and love.
https://consc.net/papers/combination.pdf
*4.
Can Materialism Explain the Mind? :
Nevertheless, in the eyes of many philosophers of mind, materialism has now reached an insurmountable quandary in the question of consciousness. . . . Physicalist theories that attempt to explain mental states include eliminative materialism, behaviorism, identity theory, and functionalism.
https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/c ... n-the-mind
↪Gregory
↪ucarr
↪tim wood
↪Lionino