Panpsychism Makes a Comeback (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 25, 2015, 00:22 (3589 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You are still focusing on the material brain as if it provided an explanation for intelligent behaviour, and yet you regard the human brain and some animal brains as receivers whose activity is governed by the “soul”! My point is that other organisms behave intelligently, ....I see no reason why you should insist that the intelligence of other organisms is purely material.-My position is that only animals with a central nervous system, a brain or ganglia may have some limited form of intelligence mainly at the instinct level. However, there is a gradation of intelligence based on how advanced they are: lobsters, insects, worms, etc. show less intelligent activity than ,say, crows, apes, whales, or dolphins. 
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> dhw: And yet you believe that some organisms do have that invisible faculty - i.e. you believe that animals have souls - but somehow, although they use it to feel, think, reason, make decisions etc., it's a different “kind” from ours.
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> DAVID: The Jewish religion differentiates the two souls as different. I follow that tradition: Nefesh and Neshama.-I don't know if Jewish tradition is correct, but from my experiences with dogs and horses, I think they have an animal soul
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> dhw: I don't know if we and our fellow animals have a soul, but again I see no reason to assume that when a dog takes a decision or works out a problem, it is using a different mechanism from that which we use.-I agree with you. It is a matter of a great gap in our processes and theirs.
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> dhw: At least we agree that evolution has produced humans! .. I find the concept of a “semi-autonomous” IM extremely unsatisfactory, unless we confine the non-autonomous area to its possible source being your God, and to the fact that it cannot exceed its own natural limitations or those imposed by the environment - a restriction that applies to all intelligences including ours. Otherwise, either organisms can make changes to themselves (autonomy) or they can't.-I can conceive of an IM which has inventive limits, in which it can only go so far in self-modification from the original form or process. That is what I have always meant as semi-autonomous. Sorry to have been obtuse.