Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Panpsychism

Meditations of a 21st century incarnation of Socrates as composed by Brent Silby


A short article, "Could The Force Really Be With Us?", has appeared online. It outlines, briefly, panpyschism — the view that all matter has consciousness to varying degrees. This is opposed to the view generally accepted by you moderns that consciousness can only be generated in brains or things that act exactly like brains.

Panpsychism is growing in popularity and does, indeed, help solve some problems that the traditional approach in physics finds difficult. Is it true? By the gods I do not know. I have not the wisdom in such things, though I have historically held that the soul is something other than the body, so I am sympathetic to this view. I shall leave it to you to read the article yourself, and perhaps you may help teach this old man. My purpose here is not to defend panpsychism. My purpose is to outline a response to panpsychism, which seems common, and to point out one or two problems with the reasoning. This particular comment was found on a certain social media platform in response to a link to the article I have mentioned above.

Mr P said: "What nonsense. Eddington was a great scientist but he was primarily an astronomer and he died 74 years ago. Science has come a long way since then. In some areas he was an authority but when he moved beyond science his opinions were worth no more than anyone's.

To say that we know some matter has consciousness is extremely misleading. As far as we can tell, matter itself does not have consciousness. In a brain the electrical connections between objects of matter create consciousness in a way we are only now beginning to understand but to suggest matter itself is conscious is simply wrong. Therefore, any theory predicated upon that idea must be equally wrong.

Jedi are attractive fiction but in our search for progress I think mankind can do better than inventing another religion. The existing ones haven't done much to further humanity's search for knowledge."

As a lover of wisdom I was reluctant to accept this forceful statement without examination, so I responded to Mr P, first by outlining his argument:

P1. (premise) As far as we can tell, matter itself does not have consciousness.

P2. (premise) In a brain the electrical connections between objects of matter create consciousness in a way we are only now beginning to understand

C. (conclusion) Therefore, to suggest matter itself is conscious is simply wrong and any theory predicated upon that idea must be equally wrong.

I then commented that his conclusion doesn't appear to follow from the premises. As stated, the conclusion is too strong given the uncertainty of premise #1. Furthermore, I said, I am not sure that premise #2 (if it is true) would help the argument work, unless the argument included an additional premise, e.g:

P3. (premise) electrical connections between objects of matter are the ONLY means by which consciousness can be generated.

Mr P would need an argument to support this premise. But the argument may still remain unconvincing. I went on to ask, even if we accept the truth of this premise, is it not the case that there are electrical interactions at play within items of matter other than brains? Is it not possible that these may also generate consciousness?

So, I suggested to Mr P that to fix his argument, he should:
1. Rework premise #1 and provide support.
2. Somehow show that premise #2 is true. To do that he would need evidence that the consciousness in brains is actually generated by electrical connections between neurons. This premise should be fairly easy to support.
3. Include additional premise #3 (as offered above) with a supporting argument or evidence.
4. Show that the only type of matter with electrical connections that can generate consciousness is neuronal matter.

Thus far I have not received a response from Mr P. I hope I have helped him develop a stronger argument.

-- Socrates