Help me take modern Pansychism seriously.
July 29, 2021 6:47 PM Subscribe
I'm a lay person with lots of interest in philosophy and science. Generally speaking, I take a physicalist view of reality, and suspect that if there is an "explanation" for consciousness, it will come from scientific advances (maybe physics, maybe neurobiology; I don't know) rather than philosophy.
I have trouble taking panpyschism (which, in what I assume is an overly simplified view is supposed to claim that even a chair has conscious experience) seriously, as a pretty knee-jerk response.
I'm looking for articles, papers, and books that are not too academic that will help me get a broader view of modern panpsychism. These works might invite me to think a bit more deeply about the concept, how it intersects with ethics, whether it furnishes any scientifically testable ideas, etc. I am less interested in how panpsychism intersects with religious views or traditions.
If possible, please note if you're making a recommendation that you haven't read yourself.
I have trouble taking panpyschism (which, in what I assume is an overly simplified view is supposed to claim that even a chair has conscious experience) seriously, as a pretty knee-jerk response.
I'm looking for articles, papers, and books that are not too academic that will help me get a broader view of modern panpsychism. These works might invite me to think a bit more deeply about the concept, how it intersects with ethics, whether it furnishes any scientifically testable ideas, etc. I am less interested in how panpsychism intersects with religious views or traditions.
If possible, please note if you're making a recommendation that you haven't read yourself.
I read Galileo's Error a while back, and I thought it did a decent job of explaining the theory in ways a curious person with no background in the subject could understand. For what it's worth, I had read a bunch of internet articles about it and thought it was fascinating, but I came away from the book with the sense that those pop-sci articles were wayyyyy overblown.
I won't be able to summarize it well here - it's been a little while - but my takeaway was that it's not actually saying anything about science, or the real world, at all - it's a purely philosophical argument about breaking down the definition of consciousness into smaller and smaller pieces, and showing that you can't draw a clear line between what's conscious and isn't; that the "stuff" of consciousness is basically the same "stuff" as everything else, so it's not a matter of category but degree, and so by definition, everything is carrying these small fragments of purely theoretical potential consciousness - but they're not remotely saying that these bits of the universe are conscious in any way we understand. Trying to pin down a definition of consciousness from first principles is an interesting and tricky endeavor, but I came away from some of those popular articles thinking that there were scientists out there arguing that the universe was this giant sentient being, and that seems to me to be pretty far from the case.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 7:51 PM on July 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
I won't be able to summarize it well here - it's been a little while - but my takeaway was that it's not actually saying anything about science, or the real world, at all - it's a purely philosophical argument about breaking down the definition of consciousness into smaller and smaller pieces, and showing that you can't draw a clear line between what's conscious and isn't; that the "stuff" of consciousness is basically the same "stuff" as everything else, so it's not a matter of category but degree, and so by definition, everything is carrying these small fragments of purely theoretical potential consciousness - but they're not remotely saying that these bits of the universe are conscious in any way we understand. Trying to pin down a definition of consciousness from first principles is an interesting and tricky endeavor, but I came away from some of those popular articles thinking that there were scientists out there arguing that the universe was this giant sentient being, and that seems to me to be pretty far from the case.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 7:51 PM on July 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
You may already be at this point, but as far as I get in taking it seriously is the simple argument that I want to take Galen Strawson seriously, he's a panpsychist who wrote a good summary, and so I want to take panpsychism seriously. I realize that's an argument based on ethos / character / reputation, but if you accept him as a relevant authority it's at least not automatically an issue--maybe reading other work by panpsychists is actually a way forward to giving them the time of day. I guess I'd add that I'm completely in favor of problematizing what you might call a 'present-at-hand' concept of consciousness, even if that could mean taking it much farther away from the givens of human experience by attributing experience to every least thing.
But personally, I keep running up against things like this: "Goff (2013) has argued ... that this leads to a sorites-style argument for panpsychism." And yeah--no. Resolving a sorites by saying, "Well, doesn't that mean every grain of sand has its own tiny bit of 'heapness'" feels like a pretty unhelpful redefinition of terms. Sticking with the point of your question, though, you could look into reasons to embrace a sorites paradox, which seems to be what they're doing.
Where I wish they were going with the argument--and this gets to some of the latter part of your question about ethical implications of panpsychism--is toward greater recognition of animal sentience, which is important to me. However, Goff actually takes panpsychism to be an argument against vegetarianism "because there isn’t that dividing line ... I can’t draw a line between what I think is ethically permissible to kill and not." So I think you're right to keep asking about this--like, a good reason to take it seriously is to actively oppose it.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:22 PM on July 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
But personally, I keep running up against things like this: "Goff (2013) has argued ... that this leads to a sorites-style argument for panpsychism." And yeah--no. Resolving a sorites by saying, "Well, doesn't that mean every grain of sand has its own tiny bit of 'heapness'" feels like a pretty unhelpful redefinition of terms. Sticking with the point of your question, though, you could look into reasons to embrace a sorites paradox, which seems to be what they're doing.
Where I wish they were going with the argument--and this gets to some of the latter part of your question about ethical implications of panpsychism--is toward greater recognition of animal sentience, which is important to me. However, Goff actually takes panpsychism to be an argument against vegetarianism "because there isn’t that dividing line ... I can’t draw a line between what I think is ethically permissible to kill and not." So I think you're right to keep asking about this--like, a good reason to take it seriously is to actively oppose it.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:22 PM on July 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
> I'm looking for articles, papers, and books that are not too academic that will help me get a broader view of modern panpsychism.
Check the bylines before reading the material.
Generally, if a philosopher is making claims involving quantum mechanics, by complete coincidence, the philosopher 1) has just read a popular treatment of QM, or worse, a philosopher's treatment of the subject, 2) has not and will not work through two chapters of an intro undergrad physics textbook on the subject, and 3) does not have a couple working quantum physicists as co-authors to help with the heavy lifting. (Note that retired/estranged physicists are much more likely to make claims about stuff they haven't done hard work researching.)
Poke around twitter. I don't think you're going to find working physicists who support this stuff. New-agers will retweet it, and Scientific American's editors will let a random science-popularizer chatter about it.
Meanwhile, a working physicist: Electrons Don’t Think - Sabine Hossenfelder
An evolutionary biologist quoting her and discussing the theory's social context:Panpsychism hangs around like a bad penny
------------
This is not to discount actual work and informed speculation out there by working physicists, working neuroscientists, (rare) philosophers who have studied science, and so on.
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:36 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Check the bylines before reading the material.
Generally, if a philosopher is making claims involving quantum mechanics, by complete coincidence, the philosopher 1) has just read a popular treatment of QM, or worse, a philosopher's treatment of the subject, 2) has not and will not work through two chapters of an intro undergrad physics textbook on the subject, and 3) does not have a couple working quantum physicists as co-authors to help with the heavy lifting. (Note that retired/estranged physicists are much more likely to make claims about stuff they haven't done hard work researching.)
Poke around twitter. I don't think you're going to find working physicists who support this stuff. New-agers will retweet it, and Scientific American's editors will let a random science-popularizer chatter about it.
Meanwhile, a working physicist: Electrons Don’t Think - Sabine Hossenfelder
An evolutionary biologist quoting her and discussing the theory's social context:Panpsychism hangs around like a bad penny
------------
This is not to discount actual work and informed speculation out there by working physicists, working neuroscientists, (rare) philosophers who have studied science, and so on.
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:36 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
> Where I wish they were going with the argument--and this gets to some of the latter part of your question about ethical implications of panpsychism--is toward greater recognition of animal sentience, which is important to me.
I think there's some decent work out there about plant-plant communication, and plant information-processing (maybe cognition) even, but the papers talk about actual chemical signaling, and don't involve quantum mechanics.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:50 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think there's some decent work out there about plant-plant communication, and plant information-processing (maybe cognition) even, but the papers talk about actual chemical signaling, and don't involve quantum mechanics.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:50 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
> some decent work out there about plant-plant communication
I can recommend The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben on this subject, although I wish he cited more of his primary sources.
By itself, it's not compelling evidence for panpsychism, nor even is it really about that at all. But it's a data point that could help to counter what the Stanford Encylopedia article on panpsychism (which I would also recommend) calls the Incredulous Stare response that tough-minded physicalists might initially give to the idea.
Anyone who's ever spent time with any reasonably sophisticated dog or cat (or rat or pig or octopus* or ...) already has compelling evidence that humans are not the only entities with conscious experiences. So, it's only really a question of how much wider we'd like to spread the love.
* also recommended: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
posted by rd45 at 5:51 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I can recommend The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben on this subject, although I wish he cited more of his primary sources.
By itself, it's not compelling evidence for panpsychism, nor even is it really about that at all. But it's a data point that could help to counter what the Stanford Encylopedia article on panpsychism (which I would also recommend) calls the Incredulous Stare response that tough-minded physicalists might initially give to the idea.
Anyone who's ever spent time with any reasonably sophisticated dog or cat (or rat or pig or octopus* or ...) already has compelling evidence that humans are not the only entities with conscious experiences. So, it's only really a question of how much wider we'd like to spread the love.
* also recommended: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
posted by rd45 at 5:51 AM on July 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
The general (rough, high-level) view of consciousness, both philosophically and scientifically, is that whatever it is, it has at least 2 necessary conditions. For a thing to be conscious it has to be:
a) alive
b) have a certain critical mass of neurons or other "thinking" cells
Thus animals, plants, fungi that are (again, very roughly) large enough to be visible to the naked eye are good contenders for having consciousness. Anything on the other side of that line is generally considered to be unlikely to be conscious. Both axes are a gradient and not a cliff, but they provide a defensible demarcation for things worth studying for consciousness, and things not worth studying.
Panpsychism essentially says that this line does not exist. A non-living thing of infinitesimal size can be conscious, and the entire universe can be conscious. The main problem with the theory is that there is little to no viable explanation of what mechanism causes or powers the consciousness in things which (generally) have no moving parts, and which are not capable of self-awareness or volition (the motive power to perform an action that is not purely in response to an outside force).
The idea that reality is made up of consciousness is equivalent to the idea of the ether. There is no evidence for it, and worse, the theory doesn't make any falsifiable predictions, and there is no way of testing its existence. For that reason it is not scientific theory. At best it is a weak philosophical theory of ontology, but generally it is considered to be a religious opinion with no scientific merit. That doesn't mean you shouldn't study it, but it does mean that you're not going to find much orthodox scientific literature taking the idea seriously.
I'd recommend the same thing I always recommend when people want to read something about consciousness: (I'm a former academic philosopher who has done post-grad work on certain elements of consciousness): Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?" essay. It's a very good introduction to the hard questions about the hard problem, and personally I feel that despite Nagel's own dabbling with panpsychism, it makes it quite clear why that theory lacks pretty much any useful arguments. YMMV, of course.
posted by underclocked at 9:21 AM on July 30, 2021
a) alive
b) have a certain critical mass of neurons or other "thinking" cells
Thus animals, plants, fungi that are (again, very roughly) large enough to be visible to the naked eye are good contenders for having consciousness. Anything on the other side of that line is generally considered to be unlikely to be conscious. Both axes are a gradient and not a cliff, but they provide a defensible demarcation for things worth studying for consciousness, and things not worth studying.
Panpsychism essentially says that this line does not exist. A non-living thing of infinitesimal size can be conscious, and the entire universe can be conscious. The main problem with the theory is that there is little to no viable explanation of what mechanism causes or powers the consciousness in things which (generally) have no moving parts, and which are not capable of self-awareness or volition (the motive power to perform an action that is not purely in response to an outside force).
The idea that reality is made up of consciousness is equivalent to the idea of the ether. There is no evidence for it, and worse, the theory doesn't make any falsifiable predictions, and there is no way of testing its existence. For that reason it is not scientific theory. At best it is a weak philosophical theory of ontology, but generally it is considered to be a religious opinion with no scientific merit. That doesn't mean you shouldn't study it, but it does mean that you're not going to find much orthodox scientific literature taking the idea seriously.
I'd recommend the same thing I always recommend when people want to read something about consciousness: (I'm a former academic philosopher who has done post-grad work on certain elements of consciousness): Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?" essay. It's a very good introduction to the hard questions about the hard problem, and personally I feel that despite Nagel's own dabbling with panpsychism, it makes it quite clear why that theory lacks pretty much any useful arguments. YMMV, of course.
posted by underclocked at 9:21 AM on July 30, 2021
Salon: Panpsychism, the idea that inanimate objects have consciousness, gains steam in science communities
posted by ottereroticist at 10:21 AM on July 30, 2021
posted by ottereroticist at 10:21 AM on July 30, 2021
Salon: Panpsychism, the idea that inanimate objects have consciousness, gains steam in science communities
Checking bylines and disciplines,
Salon: Two scientists discover that mitochondria can coordinate with one another, but explicitly refuse to make comments about panpsychism. One history grad student then excitedly talks to philosophers about how the mitochondria result might mean that chairs are conscious, maybe. Or something.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:11 PM on July 30, 2021
Checking bylines and disciplines,
Salon: Two scientists discover that mitochondria can coordinate with one another, but explicitly refuse to make comments about panpsychism. One history grad student then excitedly talks to philosophers about how the mitochondria result might mean that chairs are conscious, maybe. Or something.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:11 PM on July 30, 2021
You might be interested in reading about Shintoism.
I strongly recommend Behave, by Robert Sapolsky, a comprehensive review of brain science by a neurobiologist. The Human Behavioral Biology course lectures at Stanford are on Youtube and are very much worth your time.
posted by theora55 at 7:37 AM on August 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
I strongly recommend Behave, by Robert Sapolsky, a comprehensive review of brain science by a neurobiologist. The Human Behavioral Biology course lectures at Stanford are on Youtube and are very much worth your time.
posted by theora55 at 7:37 AM on August 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Goff has a blog that deals on the topic fairly regularly, as well as a worthwhile entry that I enjoyed. While I have not actually read this one yet (sorry) Galileo's Error is billed as to be specifically about modern pansychism, and I've read the author enough author to suggest it here. I found Chalmer's book on the topic harder to read, but you may not.
The connections and references to strains of Buddhism and other religious schools of thought are going to be difficult to avoid for context, even in "harder" sources. This is a really old idea that is gaining traction with modern explanations; that connection is going to be hard to avoid wholesale.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:48 PM on July 29, 2021 [2 favorites]