The promises and perils of panpsychism: Panpsychist Philip Goff challenged by Hilary Lawson IN FULL

[@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas]

Do you agree with panpsychism? Must we radically revise our theory of consciousness? Let us know what you think in the comments! To see more of Philip Goff explaining his theory of consciousness (with a free trial) follow this link: iai.tv/video/breaking-through-the-consciousness-stalemate?KZbin&+comment&

[@MasoudJohnAzizi]

The late Dr. David Bohm's ideas on the implicate order and the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics align with aspects of panpsychism. Bohm suggested that consciousness might be fundamental to reality, and his concept of the implicate order, a deeper level of reality underlying the manifest world, could be interpreted as supporting panpsychism's notion of consciousness being inherent to all things.

[@stephengee4182]

I did a web search of Max Planck and Erwin Schrodinger's views on consciousness and found close resonances with my own interpretation of quantum phenomenon. This interpretation of consciousness also resonants with Einstein's god, the god of Spinoza. I believe that consciousness resides in the imaginary number realms of the quantum field from which nature and this universe emerges. My guess is that this is why different isotopes of Xenon, with different nuclear spin, can have such different anesthetic effects on conscious organic chemistry biological systems.

[@Clszaiogien]

Yea you should revisit because as of now its not scientific enough, because none of the ""scientists"" have studied the Vedic teachings throughly enough, like the ones on doctorate level or professor level recommended in ISKCON temples. And whats the most crucial part, someone who is at a low stage of consciousness is not able to understand consciousness correctly, they only get shallow understanding of it naturally, so the modern "sciences" are mostly wrong about the topic. Yes i mean to say, rhetorical question, how on earth is that possible theres so many people who are more conscious than others, yogis etc, but scientists still dont understand how does that work and all of related question... how is that even possible, well its just like i said, but in simpler words "you are not worthy"... its kind of this way that ""scientists"" demand answers but are not willing to factually dig into this topic, because one must practice it to achieve the scientific accurate result of knowing consciousness better... but nobody is asking the actual experts, nobody cares to actually do what the teachings are saying, the yogis, monks, masters.. so im saying, as far as im aware of, the "hare krishnas" have the best explanations thanks to Swami Prabhupada lectures etc, im not recommending other authors

[@Clszaiogien]

@@MasoudJohnAzizi that idea you described is close to conclusion of Vedic teachings from Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavat Gita Purana, because those two are the conclusion of all Vedas. Somewhat close because in Vedas its described to quite large extents that everything is consciousness, but transformed or "manifestation" added to it to achieve "life form", sorry cant focus right now its so late night here.

[@MasoudJohnAzizi]

@@Clszaiogien Very good 👍

[@dawnheffernan1408]

As Raymond Tallis wrote recently in “Philosophy Now” expecting consciousness to understand itself it’s similar to expecting a crossword puzzle to solve itself.

[@brothermine2292]

Goff's claim that "panpsychism makes all the same predictions that physicalism makes" is ridiculous. Panpsychism is too half-baked to make _any_ predictions. Goff implicitly acknowledged this when he spoke of a "division of labor" in which panpsychists must rely on physicalists to say "what stuff does." Although physicalism hasn't explained how the activity of (brain) matter produces first-person subjective experience of qualia & thoughts -- Chalmers' Hard Problem -- physicalism successfully makes predictions about those experiences, based on the observed correlations between neural activity & experiences.

[@Thomas-gk42]

Panpsychism made by Goff contradicts the standard model of particle physics.

[@CraigPMiller]

Oh, please. Is there a single example of consciousness without physicality? 😊

[@Thomas-gk42]

Goff?😂

[@Betweoxwitegan]

Atheists most definitely can explain "the fine tuning problem in physics" as if it weren't fine tuned for us, we wouldn't exist and thus wouldn't observe that. There are also counterarguments about the universes proclivity to order and stability leading to a universe like ours, the infinite possibility theory, etc.

[@axelnilsson2031]

no one even knows how the tuning came to be, its absurd to me to even use it as argument it does not stand out at all its just another "hey we dont know much about this thing so lets put god there" it is also technically a texas sharpshooter fallacy, but that tends to be too hard for people to wrap their heads around

[@Betweoxwitegan]

@axelnilsson2031 I agree 💯 why should we assume that the world was built specifically for us and not that we are a consequence of a random world? Etc

[@axelnilsson2031]

@Betweoxwitegan Yeah. Why should we assume at all? Nobody knows what is going. Things just are. I mean its fine and even constructive to speculate but if you follow philosophy and science you really do get the sense that there's a certain locked door that there is no getting past. Like the bridge between the continous and the discrete cannot be crossed. Russels paradox etc. The fact that nothing that isn't an airtight system can make accurate prediction and that no truly airtight system can exist anyway. I dislike theism because its like you are riding the train of knowledge and then when the train stops and you get off and go "this is good enough for me" and then the train keeps going. The thing to do is never get off the train at all. All the stops are faux realities we made up. No one knows where the train is going because the owl of minerva flies only at dusk. So why get off?

[@Thomas-gk42]

Cosmological fintuning is another pseudoscientific argument, statisitcal nonsense, and debunked by new scientific knowledge. Regardless of that it´s used by guys like Stephen C. Meyer to sell more books. Wait, is that guy even more trashy than Goff?

[@anatolwegner9096]

How anyone can take this waffle seriously is beyond me

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

Waffle is a breakfast staple (or even dinner or dessert). Of course everyone is serious about it and everyone has a favorite recipe and favorite topping(s).

[@audiodead7302]

I once heard a potato waffle speak at length about its suffering. I took it very seriously, then ate it.

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

@@audiodead7302 You have failed to mention if you ate it as is our with some topping and which topping you choose if any. Therefore your argument is logically invalid, I'm afraid.

[@audiodead7302]

@@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x It was a potato waffle, so I applied salt and pepper and a modest amount of HP sauce. I ate it with baked beans so it absorbed a lot of the tomato sauce from that as well.

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

@@audiodead7302 You have just validated your point. The suffering of your waffle wasn't for nothing. And I became hungry. 😀

[@newtonfinn164]

"Psychism" is not quite the right word. It connotes too much. Much better is Teilhard's terminology, that all matter has a "within" as well as a "without" and that as the structure of matter evolves in complexity, the "within" grows stronger, becomes more observable.

[@audiodead7302]

That's an elegant way of putting things.

[@brothermine2292]

That hypothesis has a "hard problem" much like Chalmers' Hard Problem for Physicalism. How does complexity of matter produce a "stronger within?" Without sufficient complexity, there's no evidence of a conscious "within," and it isn't needed to explain _any_ observations of the behavior of matter. So Occam's Razor advises betting against the existence of the "weaker within."

[@newtonfinn164]

Teilhard would point out that nothing in nature is a standalone, a one-off. When radiation was discovered in uranium, it was only a matter of time that we learned that all matter radiates. So with the "within" that is manifest, at this point, only in living things.

[@brothermine2292]

>newtonfinn164 : Not all matter emits nuclear radiation (one of the byproducts of uranium fission) since not all matter is a heavy atomic nucleus. For example, electrons don't emit any nuclear radiation. Science discoveries aren't inevitable... not "only a matter of time." They require hard work & analysis by smart scientists, using the probative tools that nature makes available. It's not clearly a fact that "all living things" have Teilhard's "within" -- which I presume is another name for first-person subjective experience of qualia. Most living things don't have a brain. I am certain, by introspection, that I have first-person subjective experience, but I can't be certain that you have it too and I only assume you have it because your construction is very similar to mine... in particular, you have a similarly constructed brain (and most living things don't). Since we have no valid test for the presence of a "within" (except for introspection) and Occam's Razor advises betting against its presence in small things that follow the known laws of physics, it's not inevitable that we will discover "everything has a within."

[@brothermine2292]

@@newtonfinn164 : Not all matter radiates the way uranium does. Uranium's radiation is nuclear radiation, a byproduct of uranium decaying into a less heavy element. So what do you mean by "all matter radiates?" Discoveries require work and the availability of probative tools. They're not "only a matter of time."

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

I still can't understand how he could be uncertain in the existence of God based on suffering. In my view it's pretty easy to explain and I could more easily understand if it was something else.

[@KonstantinosII]

Because there can't be a good and loving God if there is suffering in the universe, and, besides that, there is no evidence for such a being, of course.

[@JagadguruSvamiVegananda]

🐟 07. GOD (OR NOT): There has never been, nor will there ever be, even the SLIGHTEST shred of evidence for the existence of the Godhead, that is, a Supreme Person, for the notion of an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent Deity is both profoundly illogical and extremely incongruous, to put it mildly. At the risk of seeming facetious, any person who believes in a gigantic man (or woman) perched in the heavens, is a literal moron. Why would the Absolute require, for instance, unlimited power, when there is naught but the Absolute extant? Of course, theists would argue that when God creates the material universe, He requires total power and control over His creation (otherwise he wouldn’t be, by definition, the Supreme). However, that argument in itself easily falls apart when one understands the simple fact that time is a relative concept and therefore has no influence on the eternal, timeless Absolute. The same contradiction applies to omnipresence. The ONLY omni-property which comes close to being an accurate description of Ultimate Reality is omniscience, since the Absolute knows absolutely everything (i.e. Itself). The English word “PERSON” literally means “for sound”, originating from the Latin/Greek “persona/prósōpa”, referring to the masks worn by actors in ancient European theatrical plays, which featured a mouth hole to enable the actors to speak through. Therefore, the most essential aspect of personhood is that the individual possesses a face. The fact that we do not usually refer to a decapitated body as a “person”, seems to confirm this claim. If you were confronted simultaneously with a severed head and a decapitated body, and asked to point to the person, would you point to the head or point to the body? I'm sure most everyone would indicate the head, at least in the first instance, agreed? Theists, by definition, believe that there is a Supreme Deity (God or The Goddess), which incorporates anthropomorphic characteristics such as corporeal form (even if that form is a “spiritual” body, whatever that may connote), with a face (hence the term “PERSON”), and certain personality traits such as unique preferences and aversions. Of course, they also believe that their fictitious God or Goddess embodies the aforementioned omni-properties, but as clearly demonstrated above, that is also a largely nonsensical, fallacious assertion. Of course, the more INTELLIGENT theists normally counter with “But God is not a person in the same sense as we humans are persons. God is an all-powerful spiritual being, without a body. He is all-knowing, all-loving and present everywhere”. In that case, God is most definitely not a person in the etymological sense, and not even a person in the common-usage of the word. When did you last hear anyone refer to an omnipresent “entity” as being a person? The mere fact that theists use personal pronouns in reference to their non-existent Deity (usually the masculine pronoun “He”), proves that they have a very anthropomorphic conception of Absolute Reality. If God is not a male, then why use masculine pronouns? If God is, in fact, male, then why would the Supreme Person require gender? Does God require a female mate in order to reproduce? The most popular religious tradition, Christianity, claims that God is “Spirit”, yet “spirit” is a very vague and undefined term. Incidentally, the term “person” can be (and, in my opinion, should be) used in reference to any animal which possesses a FACE, since most humans do not accept the fact that animals are persons, worthy of moral consideration. In recent times, animal rights activists have been heard referring to animals in such a way (as persons). The fact that vegans are still relatively rare in most nations/countries, seems to validate this assertion (that most humans do not see other animals, like birds, fish, and mammals, as persons), otherwise, non-vegetarians/non-non-vegans would have no qualms about saying such things as “I am planning to consume three persons for dinner tonight” (in reference to three animals). Many otherwise intelligent theists, particularly the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (a radical Indian cult first established in the United States of America in the late 1960’s by a truly delusional retired pharmacist named Mr. A. C. De), HONESTLY believe that the Ground of All Being is a youthful Indian gentleman with dark-blue-tinged black skin colour, who currently resides on His own planet in the “spiritual” world, and spends His days cavorting around with a bunch of cowherd girls! If one were to ask those ISKCon devotees how Lord Krishna manages to incorporate relative time into the timeless realm (since it takes a certain amount of time for Him to play his flute and to frolic with His girlfriends), then I’m not sure how they would answer, but they would undoubtedly dismiss the argument using illogical semantics. I’m ashamed to admit that I too, was previously one of those deluded religionists who believed such foolish nonsense. Thankfully, I managed to break-free from that brainwashing cult, and following decades or sincere seeking, came to be the current World Teacher himself. Common sense dictates that Ultimate Reality must NECESSARILY transcend all dualistic concepts, including personality and even impersonality. However, only an excruciatingly minute number of humans have ever grasped this complete understanding and realization. Neither Eternal Beingness, Unlimited Consciousness, nor Blissful Quietude (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit) necessitate personality. See Chapter 06 to properly understand the nature of Ultimate Reality, and Chapter 03 to learn how to distinguish mere concepts from (Absolute) Truth. The wisest theologians will, when hard-pressed, admit that the primary reason for theists referring to the Absolute as personal in nature, is because the Absolute has some kind of MIND (by which they really mean some degree of Universal, Infinite Consciousness). However, it is indeed possible (and in fact, is the case) that the Ground of Being is Pure Consciousness Itself. Universal Consciousness (“puruṣa” or “brahman”, in Sanskrit) can and does include all characteristicss of Pure Being, such as unconditional love, unadulterated awareness, et cetera, and we humans are, quintessentially, of the same Nature. In other words, you are, fundamentally, “God” (“tat tvam asi”, in Sanskrit). Most arguments for the existence of a Supreme Creator God are actually arguments for the INTELLIGENT DESIGN of the perceivable universe, and not for the Intelligent Designer being a person as such. As explicated elsewhere, the phenomenal sphere is naught but an appearance in consciousness. Therefore, to assert that there is a cause of all causes is a a legitimate contention, but to abruptly attribute that first cause to be a male or female (or even an androgynous) Deity is a non-sequitur. There is no evidence for any phenomena without conscious awareness. There are at least FOUR possible reasons why many persons are convinced of the existence of a Personal God (i.e the Supreme [Male] Deity): 1. Because it is natural for any sensible person to believe that humans may not be the pinnacle of existence, and that there must be a higher power or ultimate creative force (an intelligent designer). However, because they cannot conceive of this designer being non-personal, they automatically suspect it must be a man (God) or a woman (The Goddess) with personal attributes. One who is truly awakened and/or enlightened understands that the Universal Self is the creator of all experiences and that he IS that (“tat tvam asi”, in Sanskrit). Cont...

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

@KonstantinosII Of course there can be in Roman Catholic faith which is the one he was growing up. If he was a Calvinist or Lutheran it would be a bit more understandable but still. In this religious framing this is one of the weakest arguments against God. Ofc if this hollow faithless faith is how he rolls, he's free to do so. Whatever makes him happy. Your second point had nothing to do with it. But we also doesn't have overwhelming evidence for consciousness, dark matter, pro or contra free will, mechanistic materialism, extraterrestrial life or Neo-Darwinism and several other things. Don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean none of these possibly exist...

[@Clszaiogien]

@@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x Its not about Catholicism, its about human nature, suffering exists because mistakes exist, and stupidity exists. You cant learn if you wont suffer, thats just how it is. I mean ofc there can not be free "all goodness" for everyone who is full of ego, and stupidity, or ignorance. How do you imagine life without prisons for those who belong in prison? People belong to this world full of suffering because we deserve to, end of story. There is more to it but its too much and writing is a waste of time, you rather should search on your own, or at least ask for direction if you want to... i just hate wasting thousands of hours of my life on explaining and nobody cares because its such a niche to grow up

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

@@Clszaiogien You said the same and no explanation is needed for me. My point was what you wrote. Catholicism is important because of free will, that's denied by multiple protestant churches. That leads to this all. If no free will, evil deeds, mistakes, stupidity if the Creator's work who is a puppet master. In Catholicism, it's the opposite. I have singled out this because it's HIS background. I could also read multi thousand words essay about how this works and why is ready to refute which I obviously won't do here and you can search for it anyway. Which goes back to my original comment, misunderstood by the first reply to it. Do you see now?

[@jadebrownofficial]

Even if the universe is infinite, it can still have boundary conditions, which may or not be crossed one day. Matter, consciousness, thought, abstract or real concepts all exist in this arena we call life. Sad to see that a lot of our time and resources are spent on trying to solve problems that have no solutions. There is an obsession that intellectuals have of trying to cross that boundary of the unknowable. I think it is a waste of time, but it is interesting to watch other humans try to explain what I would consider beyond your comprehension.

[@wrathofcorn]

Just once, I'd like to hear at least one solid hypothesis on consciousness being the fundamental stuff the universe is made of. Show me the faintest roadmap of how you could conceive consciousness existing before matter or how consciousness even effects matter. If you are a panpsychist, I can imagine you'd really want someone more scientifically competent than Philip Goff at head of your camp. He offers nothing but exasperated hot air and incredulous hand gestures. If pressed, he takes on an air of superiority, stating interlocutors simply don't understand. Our understanding shouldn't affect your hypothesis, it either works or it doesn't. The burden of proof is on you. If your hypothesis can only work inside your own head, it's not a hypothesis, it's nonsense. The pseudoscience community will always exist but, as science closes in and shines light in nearly every nook and cranny, pseudoscientists will have to adapt by becoming more and more complex in their theory. Currently, it seems like we're at the "sure, you have found all the energy and particles that interact with the world around us, but maybe all the rules that energy and those particles follow are different inside your brain because... I feel so very special!" Philip, we get it, you feel VERY special because you saw the color red. Unfortunately, that feeling of self-infatuation is not a fundamental theory of the universe or even consciousness for that matter. The only time I can stand listening to Goff is when he's being dunked on by real scientists. It's laughable how quickly the dark spots in Goff's understanding of basic science are reached.

[@YoBro88]

Wäre cool, wenn die Ki je nach Person verschiedene Stimmen bekommen könnte.

[@JBActors]

If your clothes were conscious, would they allow that outfit? 🎉😮🎉

[@axelnilsson2031]

Putting any fundamental brand on reality is going to far. It says absolutely nothing. If I have to choose I choose panpsychism because its less reductive and reality requires experience. If you go the dualist route its clear that physicalism requires consciousnesses to make any sense so there's like a hierarchy there. Panpsychism offers a fresher perspective and science definitely needs some new philosophy to stand on seeing on how physics have been treading water for quite a while now. But it doesnt solve anything. Or really say anything. Other than making the fact that semiotics have to be fundamental for interactions to happens, but does that equate consciousness? Does it qualify?

[@tonymaitland]

I THINK (in words) THEREFORE I AM (conscious). Stop the nonsense of Animism.

[@Betweoxwitegan]

Why are words held to a higher standard or level of consciousness development than other ways of thinking and experiencing? We can imagine a hypothetical being which does not think in words as we would but is "smarter" than us and experiences more than us, would you say that the being isn't conscious? "I think therefore I am" is such a commonly praised L imo