Kooky indeed.
Consciousness does not require pansychism. That's an easy way...a settling for what is easiest.
It doesn't solve the problem it simply declares it as a 'fundamental' and then projects it into everything.
Reinventing Christianity, or Abrahamism, for the Modern Age.
Laws governing living organisms are simpler, because they are more intimate, they are the known.
Panpsychism isn't 'radical', it's an outdated ancient superstition. Consciousness does not precede reality, it follows as a reaction to reality. It emerges out of world, it does not precede world, as nothing precedes world.
It is a part of world gradually and partially becoming aware of world.
Panspychism leads to the idea of inter-subjectivity - all is subjective. All is a product of a mind, or a consciousness.
There is no world outside mind.
Panspychism is an old idea....goes back to Spininoza that offered a less anthropomorphic version of Abrahamic spirituality.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]We must be weary of any theory that comes form the human brain and simply uses the unknown, the negative, to justify itself.
It begins with a partial understanding of self and then projects into world, as word, this understanding.
A simple example would be magnetism.
Using ignorance a mind may use the word 'attraction' in its multiple meaning to imply that the attraction between humans, or of life with the elements it requires and is made of, is the same as the attraction between magnet and metal. It may then project into this attraction what he understands of his human attraction to the opposite sex, or to certain foods etc.
It's need becomes a universal force.
Then he will project into this magnet-metal relationship an anthropomorphic essence and claim that the magnet is like him....needy of other. He will project intent.
But the magnet/metal relationship requires no intent, as there is no need.
It can be explained using other methods that do not anthropomorphize.
We see a rock and we unify it in our mind, and then we project into it our own intentions, our own self-awareness - we explain the coincidental by using what we know of the intentional.
Such unities can as easily be explained using non-conscious interactions (harmony) - attracting/repelling finding an ephemeral balance - bond, stability.
Following the p
ath-of-least-resistance does not require awareness. Life can follow the path-of-more-resistance because it can intentionally focus its aggregate energies (will) upon an objective beyond the immediate - we have memory, and this memory gives us an intent surpassing the immediate.
For me the issue is one of differentiating what is living from what is non-living (distinguish and differentiate, is to make conscious) and not to level it all down to sameness.
To become conscious of what is consciousness.
Iteration is a element of living, but so is memory. Memory is the fundamental difference between living and non-living interactions, and consciousness is memory engaging or juxtaposed with acting.
The issue of free-will should be taken into account because if panpsychism is to be taken seriously then we are not free to will but becoming aware of what has already been willed, by another, and only justifying it to ourselves.
I've provided my own metaphysical positions that clearly differentiate living from the non-living, and also presents consciousness as emergent properties, processes, including memory juxtaposed against reality.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]If you imagine how an old-school projector produced a movie on a screen, and we replace projector with a mental agency, and film with memory, and screen with world then consciousness is this constant projection.
Brain collects sensual data, converts them to a form it can process (abstractions, sensations etc.), and then runs them through the brain in a continuous stream - some parts of the brain acting as projectors constructing the abstractions of imagery, scents, textures and so on.
I'm not claiming to have solved the problem but only to have provided a more sensible and honest application of concepts, and usage of the words associated with them.
The temptation to return the Abrahamic God back to 'life' is part of the growing process. The need for a parent is strong, and we are still an immature species getting used to our physicality, and now exploring our minds, and our psychologies and our usage of symbols/language.
Panspsychism is not so different from the Abrahamic concept of omnipresence.
Replace consciousness with God, the divine, and then explain everything as god's presence in all existence.
God is a metaphor for the absolute: immutable, indivisible, eternal, whole, one etc.
Experience contradicts each and every one of these traits. Experience has to be presented as the antithesis, the negation of the divine.
I start from experience and build my positions on probabilities. I do not begin with a conclusion and then justify it using experiences...because any idea can be justified using this backwards method.
The most absurd theory can begin with an answer, an absolute truth, and then assimilate every experience into its pre-established premises, or cherry pick what to ignore and what to integrate.
This
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]emoting, not thinking, inevitably leads to circular reasoning.
See how Christianity presents
god as 'love'.
God, creates man to find him.
So love loves loving. The word 'love' is taken as a starting premises and used as a metaphor to give God a more pleasing and vague meaning. For the christian God is in everything...so a stone is god loving himself, and man is 'free' to not 'love loving' which is evil, Because to not love loving means you do not love yourself.
Projecting the human emotion into non-living phenomena we can also claim that an atom, made of protons, neutrons, electrons is a unity of love. We can then easily explain existence using 'love', and easily sell this concept to the needy and lost....as Saul did with Jesus' theory.
It's a non-explanatory explanation, with a circular finality - certainty. It is positive, pleasing, and so easy to digest and to accept.
Imagine being told that God is loving himself by loving you; that you are the conduit of
God's self-love; that god is everywhere in everything giving you a sense of belonging. Comforting.
An easy explanation that offers closure to the desperate.
Although I cannot absolutely dismiss panpsychism, like I cannot absolutely reject the Christian version of Creationism, I can place it so low in probability as to make it inconsequential. Awaiting new data to raise its possibility, towards probability.
Bottom<>Up Thinking - an openness to possibilities/probabilities is an openness to space/time -
world/cosmosSelf-referential emoting is a cocooning, a turning in on one's self...creating a safe enclosure, a safe space away from the unknown, indifferent world - its a psychological search for a womb to crawl back into.
Womb is the proper metaphor...Panpscychism is a womb, living breathing, encompassing, sheltering, wholeness. It is completely theoretical and language bound....found in books. A theory awaiting empirical validation, like all theories are. Every theory ever thought was perfect and linguistically plausible.
The good ones were also self-consistent, as are the best works of fiction.
Based on human knowledge and my own experiences there's a distinct and obvious difference between the living and the non-living, and although the 'fundamental principle', an M-Theory, or an absolute, has yet to be discovered, it can be presumed.
That we ask the question already implies that we've presupposed something.
If we ask: "
Is there a god" we begin with a presumption and then ask for absolute validation or negation...but we have no reason to even make such a presupposition other than our own ignorance and insecurities.
The question of a god is nonsensical. At least as Moderns define the word, and this is based on Abrahamic spiritual traditions, and a trembling psychology, nihilism takes advantage of.
The ancient Indo-Europeans did not define their gods in the same way.
They, too, anthropomorphize but they did so with observable natural processes, using metaphors that in time developed into mythological narratives.
Did the laymen believe in these narratives literally?
Yes...but in every age the mediocre minds are given a simple and often superstitious, narrative to keep them happy, and malleable.
Otherwise civilization would be impossible.