Panpsychism Makes a Comeback: (General)

by David Turell , Friday, July 15, 2022, 20:31 (860 days ago) @ David Turell

Feser comments against it:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/07/goffs-gaffes.html#more

For another thing, and as I also pointed out in my earlier post, panpsychism creates new problems of its own. As common sense and Aristotelianism alike emphasize, conscious experience in the uncontroversial cases is closely linked to the presence of specialized sense organs, appetites or inner drives, and consequent locomotion or bodily movement in relation to the things experienced. It is because human beings, dogs, cats, bears, birds, lizards, etc. possess these features that few people doubt that they are all conscious. And it is because trees, grass, stones, water, etc. lack these features that few people believe they are conscious.

The point is in part epistemological, but also metaphysical. Aristotelians argue that there is no point to sentience in entities devoid of appetite and locomotion, so that (since nature does nothing in vain) we can conclude that such entities lack sentience. Some philosophers (such as Wittgensteinians) would argue that it is not even intelligible to posit consciousness in the absence of appropriate behavioral criteria. Naturally, all of this is controversial. But the point is that a theory that claims that electrons and the like are conscious faces obvious and grave metaphysical and epistemological hurdles, and thus can hardly claim parsimony, of all things, as the chief consideration in its favor!

So, Goff’s defense fails – and again, most of the problems are of Goff’s own making, because they have to do with parts of his position being inadvertently undermined by other parts. His exposure of the limits of Galileo’s mathematization of nature, his rejection of reductionism, his affirmation of external world realism, his call for parsimony – all of these elements of Goff’s position are admirable and welcome. But when their implications are consistently worked out, they lead away from panpsychism, not toward it.

Comment: this is an ongoing discussion in Feser. For more background read Feser's blog. Other interesting comments from his readers:

"as you say, panpsychists understand panpsychism as a solution to a metaphysical problem.

"And as you have nicely shown, this "problem" is a pseudo-problem, an illusory problem.

"I think the panpsychists do not understand what the real and actual metaphysical problem is for them, for which panpsychism is a solution.

"The real problem for them and the real motivation for or behind their theory is how to explain the appearance of consciousness in natural history and in the individual development of the animal in the face of a godless, material world.

"For without God, the appearance of consciousness in an unconscious material world is a true miracle. And miracles can be explained better with God.

"Or consciousness lies virtually or potentially hidden in matter, but then we have a kind of design which needs a designer.

"But if one makes matter conscious in all its forms, as panpsychism does, then God indeed becomes superfluous.

"So panpsychism at its deepest core is a strategy to get rid of God. Philip Goff may not be aware of this core."

Another comment:

"Bertrand Russell and Friedrich Nietzsche are among the greatest atheists in intellectual history. And it is no coincidence that they have inclinations and sympathies towards panpsychist ideas.

"So how do you become a panpsychist. One is first an atheist and a materialist and a physicalist. This is the modern default position. Then, however, the occurrence of consciousness cannot be reconciled properly with that position. So the logically consistent physicalist must let the physical get permeated with the mental."

Comment: it is thus no surprise dhw, as an agnostic, favors considering panpsychism