Panpsychism Makes a Comeback: denied in plants II (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 09, 2019, 10:07 (1753 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Our disagreement is your use of equating awareness with consciousness. Awareness only means the animal is conscious.

dhw: You have just equated awareness with consciousness, and yes the animal is aware, which means it is conscious. Consciousness does not mean self-awareness. There are different levels of awareness/consciousness. Humans have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals. There is no disagreement.

DAVID: I disagree with your smudging together animal awareness with the attributes of human consciousness. Adler made a great point about the importance of the difference.

There is no smudging. Animals share our awareness/consciousness of external conditions, and are sentient, communicative, decision-making etc., just as we are. But they do not have the additional levels of consciousness that enable us to do all the extras that mark us out as being very different from them. In other words, “we have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals.” Why do you keep trying to manufacture a disagreement?

dhw: […] As for panpsychism, as I understand it, the term is open to any number of interpretations, including your own panentheism (God’s consciousness permeates but also transcends our reality). This a top-down version. I like to consider an atheistic possibility of a bottom-up version, in which energy and materials (or at least some of them) have their own rudimentary mental components, from which physical life and mental complexity have evolved to the forms we know today.

DAVID: I think bottom up is a stretch. The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.

dhw: How very strange. I thought you thought your God was mentally active. Now he’s not just pure energy, but he also has neurons.

DAVID: You are having fun: God does not have neurons, only animals do.

Yes, I am pointing out various discrepancies in your thinking. You do recognize mental activity that is not related to neurons, e.g. in God and, as below, in souls.

dhw: And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active.

DAVID: You are pipe-dreaming. I have never said bacteria are intelligent. They act under intelligently implanted instructions.

You are not reading what I wrote, which relates to what most scientists agree on. I know you disagree with most scientists. That is why I query your statement that “The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.” (My bold)

dhw: You even accept a bottom-up view of evolution in so far as it starts with comparatively simple forms of life and evolves into ever increasing complexity. But I accept all your reservations concerning the mental capacity of all materials. I find that as difficult to believe in as a universal mind that has simply always been there.

DAVID: I fully understand all of your difficulties, especially your uncontrolled tendency to humanize god

I’m glad you understand that I am torn between two hypotheses, each of which seems to be equally unlikely. Nothing to do with humanizing. See “unanswered questions”.