Panpsychism Makes a Comeback; physicist denies (General)

by dhw, Saturday, January 05, 2019, 12:35 (2147 days ago) @ David Turell

"Summary: If a philosopher starts speaking about elementary particles, run."

DAVID's comment: Her blog is lots of fun. She always tells it like it is. I think God's consciousness runs the universe. Panpsychism simply steals from that idea.

dhw: As far as I know, Whitehead’s process theology is a mixture of panpsychism and pantheism and panentheism, and there is absolutely no reason why panpsychism in itself should exclude God. However, the atheistic version that I would propose for my bottom-up evolution of consciousness is that particles are forever forming new combinations, and in the course of eternity it is conceivable that eventually they will form one or more that will give rise to the most rudimentary forms of awareness. From these evolve all the stages of consciousness that we know of. So there isn't just one consciousness, but billions of individual consciousnesses. Far-fetched? Yes, and I don’t believe it. But not believing is different from disbelieving. An alternative is an immaterial conscious mind that was never formed but has always existed and created all the combinations of material particles (which it somehow created out of its immaterial self) that gave rise to untold billions of stars and galaxies and suns and solar systems and planets, including our own, and this sourceless mind fiddled with a number of particles to create a combination which could reproduce itself and evolve into all the stages of consciousness that we know of. Far-fetched? Yes, and I don’t believe it. But not believing is different from disbelieving.

DAVID: Your problem about particles is that is the knowledge we have that the particles we know are in fixed relationships and you are proposing they were free to roam before assuming there roles in this universe. Are you referring to 'before' the Big bang? Being conscious and consciousness arise from standard molecules made from standard elements, which are the basic combinations of the 25 particles.
I suspect God did not have to fiddle with particles, but was very direct.

I thought you were a dualist and believed that consciousness arose directly from your immaterial, non-particled God. I also thought that everything in the material universe consisted of particles. My science dictionary gives two definitions of the word, and I am using this one: “A general term broadly applied to atoms, molecules, ions, or whatever is being considered; ‘entity’ is another suitable term." In your scenario, I presume your eternal God created material particles out of himself and then put them together to create the material universe. I neither believe nor disbelieve it. In the atheistic scenario I have summarized, material particles have existed forever, and have forever been doing precisely what you think your God has been doing: putting themselves together to form different material combinations. If the Big Bang did take place, it would have been an event in an eternity of events. If your God can be eternal, so can an ever changing universe. I neither believe nor disbelieve it.