A Panpsychist Hypothesis (General)

by David Turell , Monday, June 16, 2014, 02:52 (3812 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: If energy is first cause, then energy is potentially everything that exists, including intelligence. (Re a definition, see below). Baby plants, insects, birds, animals and humans are filled with potential intelligence,-As you note below, I hold that most of the so-called intelligence outside of humans is automatic responses. Higher animals like horses can be taught how to respond to the rider, but little true intelligence is required.-> dhw: Your concept of God is of a being that has already totally fulfilled the potential of energy intelligence, because if this universe really is the beginning, he already knew what to do with matter before he'd even experienced it!-That is your concept of my concept. God may have had to experiment, i just don't know for sure, but I still think the arrival of humans was his intent.
> 
> DAVID: Intelligent thought requires a language with which to think. Intelligence plans and designs. You want it invented out of thin air. Intelligence is inexorably wrapped up with consciousness.
> 
> dhw: I'm not going to attempt a definition of intelligence, but I'm happy to list some of the attributes we associate with it: the ability to process perceptions, understand and act on them, communicate, devise plans and strategies, make decisions...some of these can be accomplished by computers, which is why we talk of artificial intelligence. They can also be performed by the billions of organisms we see around us, including some of the very simplest, such as bacteria.-You are reaching amazing conclusons aabout automatic chemical reactions and instinct, inherited learned behaviors. -> dhw; And yet over and over again, you present us with examples that contradict this narrow view (for which, as always, I am deeply indebted to you):
> 
> DAVID: Ten different attributes of plants. Not so docile:
> 
> http://io9.com/5901172/10-pieces-of-evidence-that-plants-are-smarter-than-you-think-Bec... these attributes are a fascinating part of life, should be presented to this venue, and my interpretation is totally opposite to yours. And to make the point thatt life is miraculous in all its aspects, and it all appeared from inorganic matter. I am incredulous, and why not?
> 
> dhw: These amazing examples clearly illustrate the point made in the definition of panpsychism that I quoted: there are "varying degrees in which things have inner subjective or quasi-conscious aspects, some very unlike what we experience as consciousness". You don't seem to make these connections. -No I don't because you are quoting interpretation, not fact, when hou view the actions of animals and plants.
> 
> dhw: In my hypothesis they are not leggos falling together. Research has shown that plants, insects, animals, bacteria and cells are individual intelligences working together, perceiving, planning, adapting, communicating, making decisions. But their form of intelligence is different from ours.-Their so-called intelligence are intelligent actions, which are in general automatic responses to the whatever challenges present.
> 
> dhw: I'm offering a somehow that evolved from the interplay between energy and matter. You claim that the energy particles of your God were somehow always intelligent and conscious because... because...they just were. And Mary Poppins could fly. All at the same level of pipe dream.-As Mary Poppins and Peter Pan said, it just takes wishing, your will and faith. You may started from the same place but the two interpretations of what we see are diametrically opposed.
> 
> I did not expect you to change your views. For me, all the hypotheses are fairies in dells, but one of them must be closer to the truth than the others, There is no consensus. Only faith.-On this we agree. I started out in a mild form of agnosticism. Religion made no sense and still doesn't. Then I started reading about the latest discoveries in particle physics. Later I dug into Darwin and found he invented a theory from very little real understanding of evolution. He didn't even know about Mendel. My conversion simply took a great deal of reading. I made up my own decisions from the information I read, not from opinions. What I found required intelligence and underlying information to explain what was demonstrated. So I asked the question: where did the required information come from? There is no way it could be developed as things evolved. Information requires intelligence to begin with. Codes are only developed by intelligence.