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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 13
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
- Start date
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
A very good interview, but as with other content that advocates any particular position, it sets-up the listener with an incomplete set of alternatives to his favored viewpoint. In this case he leaves out the more flexible models possible with certain physicalist views, which represent ( IMO ) the largest challenge to his view, and are significantly different than classical materialism.
Here we can remind ourselves that the idea of mind and matter always existing together does not explain the vast amount of time that matter existed before any life evolved, let alone any life with what could even be loosely called a mind. The only argument against this boils down to subjective idealism, which although impossible to disprove, is equally impossible to prove, and also seemingly ridiculous ( IMO ) against the evidence for everything else.
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Excellent article ! Here's one of his books. It looks very well written, and would probably give us some greater insight into what he calls the "Woodhouse-Dossey debate" .
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594773408/?tag=rockoids-20
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I'd be interested in your identifying and describing "the more flexible models" you're referring to, and also defining their differences from what you refer to as "classical materialism."
It seems to me that de Quincey does not conceive of "mind and matter always existing together" but rather contemplates interactions at the quantum level that provide the grounding behavior of interactions among developing physical phenomena (quantum fields grounding [eta: guiding] the interactions and integrations of larger forces and fields as pursued in complexity theory, before the gradual evolution of life from chemical to biochemical evolution. I've sometimes thought of this as the formation of intrinsic habits of interaction [eta: and integration] in nature, and interaction [eta: and integration] as the ground of protoconscious intersubjectivity in the eventual evolution of life.
Intersubjectivity depends upon the prior self-sensing and sensing of boundaries within primordial cells that Maturana and Varela referred to as the relationship revealed in autopoiesis. Subsequent evolution of species unfolds in increasing protoconsciousness and its very lengthy evolution toward prereflective consciousness and subsequent reflective consciousness in species such as ourselves and certain other species, such as dolphins, whales, corvids, and others, increasingly understood by biologists to likely possess 'minds' or 'proto-minds' like our own. So mind evolves from matter only over eons of time and properly develops as such with the generation and evolution of life.
But for de Quincey we are aware at subtle and subconscious levels of the interrelation and interconnection of ourselves and other species of life with the holistic, interconnected, cosmic whole within which we exist. I don't see how "subjective idealism" comes into de Quincey's thought, but I have yet to read his books, and doing so is likely necessary to comprehend his thought adequately.
I've dashed off this reply quickly since I have to leave momentarily, so I might want to edit this later.
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
This is a good place to start: Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) The article makes it clear that there are numerous versions of Physicalism and that some of them are very different than what we might call classical materialism, which is the idea that everything is literally made of materials with properties such as weight, density, hardness, flexibility, solidity, etc.
That may be the case. I'm just going with what I was hearing coming from him when he was advocating panpsychism.
Perhaps that is one way of looking at it. Another is that intersubjectivity is a concept used to describe the space of shared understanding, or common ground, between persons wherein people, as individual subjects, collaboratively create and share meaning [ source ]
I would agree that mind has evolved over time, however there seems to be a false logic being applied to the panpsychist view that mind has always existed simply because the building blocks have always been there.
De Quincey doesn't use the phrase "subjective idealism" himself. It is just a natural consequence of taking panpsychism so far as to claim it is the fundamental nature of reality. De Quincey doesn't make that specific claim, but seems to empathise with it, and like other panpsychists, he hedges his view with escape clauses. The result is that we're still left with the original problem of dualism. Nothing is actually solved by it.
Why Panpsychism Is Probably Wrong
It’s enchanting to think that everything—from atoms to rocks to trees—is conscious, but it doesn’t explain much about the world.
Spacetime Emergence, Panpsychism and the Nature of Consciousness
How does experience, which is so intimately tied to our perception of time and space, arise from timeless, non-spatial ingredients?
blogs.scientificamerican.com
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@USI Calgary, for some reason my usual log-in is no longer working. This is the message I get when I try to use it: "The requested user 'constance523@embarqmail.com' could not be found."
Would you please get this straightened out for me? Thanks.
Would you please get this straightened out for me? Thanks.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
A post cannot be made without a valid login, so because you made the post, you must have been logged-in, and so far as I know, there is no option for a user to login using more than one email address. So my suggestion is for you to use the login you used to create your last post, and simply forget about using the other one.
I don't have a second account using an emaiI address different from the one I've used here for the last seven or eight years. I accessed the forum today by linking to it through a search for 'the paracast forums', which brought me into the forum as apparently already logged-in -- that is, I came immediately to the usual page that contains my notifications, the most recent one bringing me to this thread.
I can henceforth access the forum this way, but I'm curious as to why I can't gain access any longer by way of my desktop link to the paracast. It might be that my desktop link to the paracast has been interrupted by some additional security added to my computer by Microsoft over the weekend.
This is a good place to start: Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) The article makes it clear that there are numerous versions of Physicalism and that some of them are very different than what we might call classical materialism, which is the idea that everything is literally made of materials with properties such as weight, density, hardness, flexibility, solidity, etc.
That may be the case. I'm just going with what I was hearing coming from him when he was advocating panpsychism.
Perhaps that is one way of looking at it. Another is that intersubjectivity is a concept used to describe the space of shared understanding, or common ground, between persons wherein people, as individual subjects, collaboratively create and share meaning [ source ]
I would agree that mind has evolved over time, however there seems to be a false logic being applied to the panpsychist view that mind has always existed simply because the building blocks have always been there.
De Quincey doesn't use the phrase "subjective idealism" himself. It is just a natural consequence of taking panpsychism so far as to claim it is the fundamental nature of reality. De Quincey doesn't make that specific claim, but seems to empathise with it, and like other panpsychists, he hedges his view with escape clauses. The result is that we're still left with the original problem of dualism. Nothing is actually solved by it.
Why Panpsychism Is Probably Wrong
It’s enchanting to think that everything—from atoms to rocks to trees—is conscious, but it doesn’t explain much about the world.www.theatlantic.com
Spacetime Emergence, Panpsychism and the Nature of Consciousness
How does experience, which is so intimately tied to our perception of time and space, arise from timeless, non-spatial ingredients?
I don't think it helps to begin a critique of de Quincey's panpsychism by appealing to the lack of a scientifically consensual definition of 'the physical'. This is a problem yet to be resolved by science. A similar case is obvious in the remaining hypotheses concerning the nature and significance of quantum mechanics: a half-dozen hypotheses (calling themselves 'theories') remain before quantum physicists and the rest of us as we attempt to understand the ontological significance of QM, QFT, etc. I think the best hope might lie in Carlo Rovelli's 'Relational Quantum Mechanics', but there are competing hypotheses and no consensus available to date.
Similarly, objecting to de Quincy's application of the term 'intersubjectivity' on the basis that others define and apply the same term differently gets us nowhere beyond the recognition of the differing premises, and too often differing presuppositions, that continue to plague both scientists and philosophers attempting to define 'consciousness'.
We might get further here by reading another paper that came into my email today from academia.edu:
Itay Shani, "Befuddling the Mind: Radical Enactivism Hutto-Myin Style and the Metaphysics of Experience"
https://www.academia.edu/41580759/B...sics_of_Experience?email_work_card=view-paper
This author attacks recent papers by Daniel Hutto, Erik Myin, and others that present a currently influential argument concerning the hard problem, arguing that it is impossible to solve. We've read papers by Hutto before in this thread but not by Myin or the others to my recollection. It seems that we ought to read them if we haven't done so, but this paper by Itay Shani seems to suffice as an introduction to their ideas since he opposes them so vigorously and intends to defeat them. Here's the abstract and an extract from Shani's paper [from pages 6-8]:
Abstract
This paper is a critique of the radical enactivism of Daniel Hutto, Erik Myin, and their collaborators, insofar as their approach pertains to the hard problem of consciousness. I argue that their valiant attempt to discard the hard problem is ultimately unsuccessful. More specifically, I argue that the hard problem of consciousness is best construed as a transcendental challenge and that no phenomeno-physical identity theory (however embodied and situated), and no "logic of identity", successfully eliminate this challenge. Finally, I argue that the theoretical stance adopted by Hutto, Myin, and their colleagues is inherently unstable in that it inadvertently blends strong deflationary currents with an implicit commitment to substantive metaphysical revisionism. Since deflationism and revisionism are discordant partners their forced union results in a position whose overall coherence is compromised. Such disequilibrium, I believe, is a general characteristic of radical enactivist approaches to consciousness, of which the position discussed on the present occasion is one prominent representative.
Key words: Deflationism; hard problem; metaphysical revisionism; non-reductive identity; radical enactivism; transcendental argument
EXTRACT: “… The collaborative work of Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin is marked by a relentless assault on the notion that mentality is, essentially, content involving (see Hutto and Myin 2013 and 2017). Here, however, I focus on the approach of Hutto, Myin, and their collaborators towards the hard problem of consciousness (Hutto and Myin 2013; Kirchhoff and Hutto 2016; Myin and Zahnoun 2018). The starting point for Hutto, Myin, and Co. is the observation that the term "hard problem of consciousness" is a misnomer: the problem is not merely hard but, they argue, impossible to solve (Hutto and Myin 2013, 157). There is more than a grain of truth in this take on the subject. Recall that Chalmers characterizes the hard problem as the problem of explaining "why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?" (1995, 201) and then proceeds to argue that no description of physical processing — no description pertaining to performance and function, however effective or complex — so much as even begin to shed light on the question. Thus construed, it appears that the problem is indeed insolvable rather than merely hard to solve.
Clearly, the gist of the hard problem consists in the observation that nothing we know about the "physical", as typically construed in terms of structure, function, and dynamics, seems to give us any hope for understanding how a clump of matter, or an organization of physical process, could manifest subjective phenomenal experience. Significantly, however, Chalmers sets the problem against the background assumption that the physical gives rise to the phenomenal. A major reason for this specific way of putting things, it appears, is that Chalmers takes into consideration the popular conviction that consciousness is a macro-level phenomenon and an evolutionary emergent, which must therefore be brought about as a constellation of more elementary physical processes working in tandem. The result, in any event, is that any theory that denies this premise — the premise that the physical gives rise to the phenomenal in the form of specific process configurations — is, in principle, a legitimate contender for solving, or perhaps more accurately dissolving, the hard problem.
Alternative dissolutions may take radically different shapes: from denying the phenomena by declaring phenomenal consciousness an illusion (e.g. Dennett 1991; Frankish 2016), to denying the emergence of consciousness by proclaiming it to be ontologically fundamental — as per panpsychism, idealism, or the double aspect theory.1 It is in line with this prospect of dissolving the problem that Chalmers himself is sympathetic to the notion that consciousness may be a fundamental aspect of reality rather than a physical emergent. This, however, is not how Hutto, Myin, and their collaborators understand the hard problem. Significantly, they articulate the problem in broader terms, namely, as a demand to show "how the phenomenal relates intelligibly to the physical" (Hutto and Myin 2013, 166). In this formulation, reference to the phenomenal as "arising" from the physical is omitted, with the result being that the hard problem is interpreted as stressing the impossibility to articulate any intelligible connection between the physical and the phenomenal (cf. Kirchoff and Hutto 2016, 308).
While the emphasis on intelligibility is spot on, it is clear that Hutto and Co. interpret the hard problem in an unorthodox fashion, giving it a broader reading than usual. More specifically, the sweeping assumption that so long as the physical and the phenomenal are considered two distinguished relata the problem has its bite requires some justification. For instance, it requires arguing that even if we take the phenomenal to be a fundamental feature, or aspect, of reality, alongside the physical, the problem remains every bit as pressing as it is in the emergentive scenarios considered by Chalmers (1995), Levine (1983) and others. In this respect, it is worth noticing that many authors stress that while fundamental brute facts (such as facts about the specific values of certain physical constants) may be acceptable, and even inevitable, the trouble with consciousness is that it appears to be both brute and ontologically non-fundamental (see Levine 1983, 358; Seager 2016, 44). This is also a major driving force behind the resurgence of the idea that consciousness might, indeed, be a fundamental feature of reality (as argued by Chalmers 1996; Seager 1995; Strawson 2006; and many others). In short, while there may be reasons to think with Hutto and friends that the weight of the problem remains uniform across these different scenarios the point is by no means trivial and it begs for some argument. As far as I can see, none is given.
III. The Hard Problem as a Transcendental Challenge
Nevertheless, let us suppose that Hutto and Co. are justified in their re-construal of the hard problem and let us follow their logic. Their next step is to react to the presumed impossibility of articulating an intelligible relation between the physical and the phenomenal by denying that there is a relation "that needs explaining" (Hutto and Myin 2013, 169). Rather than assuming that there are two distinct relata whose mysterious relation calls for an explanation, they urge us to "stick with REC and take phenomenality to be nothing but forms of activities — perhaps only neural — that are associated with environment-involving interactions" (Ibid, 169). The phenomenal, they argue elsewhere, "is the physical described differently — under a different guise or mode of representation" (Kirchhoff and Hutto 2016, 308).
In other words, their strategy for obviating the hard problem consists in opting for an identity theory that takes phenomenal properties to be identical to physical properties of one sort or another. Although Hutto, Myin, and their collaborators add a unique flavor to this identity theory, which I consider below, the general mold of their account follows the footsteps of David Papineau's approach. With Papineau, they share the contention that identities need no explaining: It may be surprising to learn that X and Y are identical but if they truly are identical than it makes no sense to ask why the identity holds. If the phenomenal is identical to (a province of) the physical, and if identities need no explaining, then there is no mystery left, or a hard problem to be reckoned with (see Papineau 1998, 379; Hutto and Myin 2013, 169; Kirchhoff and Hutto 2016, 309).
The ease with which the hard problem is thereby removed ought to make us wonder whether such an elementary insight is indeed the key for delivering us from our troubles, or whether the solution on offer is overly simplistic. To get our bearing properly, we need to ask first what, exactly, is the true gravitas of the hard problem. The answer, I think, is clear enough: the hard problem underscores the fact that there seems to be no intelligible conceptual link between the physical and the phenomenal. Take any physical process F, no matter how complex, and any experience Y, no matter how simple: nothing about F, understood qua physical process, suggests that it should, or could, be an abode of experience; nothing about it renders its presumed sentience an intelligible fact. To capitalize on the words of an early observer, given our canonical grasp of the physical (in terms of function, structure, and dynamics) and the phenomenal (in terms of subjectivity and the raw feels of experience) "the chasm between the two classes of phenomena... remains intellectually impassable" (Tyndall, 1879, 18).
Now, the first thing to notice here is the neutrality of such terms as "link", "chasm", or "gap". The problem, as stated, is oblivious to the question as to whether the precise nature of the relation between the physical and the phenomenal is that of constitution, causation, grounding, or identity. These are simply different ways of articulating the link, or relation, between these relata — and in each case the difficulty is essentially the same, namely, that the postulated relation fails to render the conceptual bond between these two classes of phenomena intellectually scrutable. . . .”
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Something you might try is when you are logged in, go to your Account Details ( link at the top right of the page next to the Search ). From there you can review and update your account details, including your email address. So you can confirm whether or not the email address you are logged in with is the one you think it is. If it isn't you can cahnge it there to whatever you want.
For your desktop link, it's probably a case of emptied login credentials. After you have established your login email is correct as above, you can simply delete the old link and create a new one.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
My answer to you wasn't a critique of de Quincey's panpsychism. It was addressing your response to my comment that de Quincey left out more flexible physicalist models, making it seem that panpsychism was the only reasonable game in town. Nevertheless you may be right in that it gets us no further ahead to dwell on that.
Then again, seeing as the HPC cannot be solved, we're no further ahead there either, but I do find it interesting how I happened to touch on similar lines of thinking in the last newsletter [ LINK ] . It often seems to me that we have reached about as far as we can go, and that all we ( or anyone else ) is doing, is reworking the same ideas to no greater advantage.
If there is a way forward that you think will get us beyond where we've already been rather than merely impressing upon us more examples that illustrate the same lines of thinking, what do you think that way is? Personally, I'm at a loss right now. However Persinger's EM experiment involving two subjects in separate rooms that were subjected to an EM field while a light was shone in one of the subject's eyes, is very interesting.
I don't think it's necessary for de Q. to evaluate every new wrinkle in ongoing attempts by our scientists and philosophers to arrive at an adequate notion of the physical. Nor do I think de Q. is attempting to destroy the general concept of our living in a physical world. Rather, he is proposing that physical forces and fields deep in the world/cosmos in which we exist have subliminal and subconsciously informative effects on our experiences, senses, and understanding of the relationship and interconnection of our being with the being of all that is. So if you propose that there is a physicalist model that overcomes de Q's panpsychist proposal, why not identify or describe it here?
We don't know that the hard problem "cannot be solved," only that we have not yet solved it. But overcoming the hard problem is only one subject with which de Q. engages. It might be that eventually his or someone else's version of panpsychism will solve the hard problem as well as clarifying much more about our species, other living species, and the nature of our lived realities.. {I'll follow your link to see your material posted in the Paracast Newsletter and respond to it in a separate post.}
{shocked} If so, the interdisciplinary field of Consciousness Studies would not remain as active now as it was when it was formed more than 30 years ago.
I think the way forward is through much further mutual engagement among the disciplines pursuing an understanding of what consciousness is and what it enables. That would require that all involved seriously in this inquiry actually explore [read and understand] the many main lines of hypotheses and theories developed outside their own disciplines.
Btw, I don't think you're quite 'at a loss' for research if you are interested in the Persinger experiment you refer to.
Here's Randall's essay linked in his last post and published in the current Paracast Newsletter:
The Metaphysics of Consciousness
By J. Randall Murphy
"In my all too common metaphysical reflections, it has occurred to me, and likely others along the way, that if the totality of our being is some sort of generated construct, then perhaps what we call consciousness is not necessarily dependent on what we perceive to be our material selves. This is not so much a contradiction to the situation outlined in my previous post, Why Afterlives Are Impossible, as it is a sort of loophole.
The reason for this is that in Why Afterlives are Impossible, the initial premises are such that any afterlife person would of logical necessity be at best only a copy of their original, and therefore continuity of personhood is not preserved. However, if it is the case that the totality of our universe is generated by something external to it, then everything we think of as real is nothing more than a rendering.
By extension, if it is the case that everything we think of as real is only a rendering generated by some vastly powerful system that lies outside this realm, it would follow that each moment in time is analogous to a single frame in a filmstrip; in which case the issue of our afterlife selves being copies becomes moot, because we and everything else in our realm are already only copies.
The sticky part of this model is that it still doesn't offer any explanation for consciousness. We may identify or empathize with the characters we see on a screen in a movie theatre, but we also know that they are only illusions created by a machine. They are nothing more than reflections from a surface. They have no personal experience of what it's like to be the characters they represent.
Why then, if we too are nothing more than a complex rendering, do we have the experience of being such a thing? This is an example of what philosopher David Chalmers calls The Hard Problem of Consciousness (HPC). To date, nobody has been able to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, and it is the opinion of those who favor a philosophical position called New Mysterianism, that humans will never find the answer.
Personally, I share the sentiments of the New Mysterians, but at the same time point out that the situation allows us to make certain inferences. For example, although we may never be able to explain consciousness, we can still accept that it exists, and therefore has a relationship to other things which exist, including other conscious beings. This leads to what psychologists and philosophers call intersubjectivity.
In theory, intersubjectivity crosses all boundaries. Together with the our natural instinct for social behavior, this might explain why people seek to commune with something beyond this realm, or if there is no such realm, create one in their own minds to fill the void. Whatever the actual situation may be, this common denominator has the potential to unite conscious beings wherever they may be.
Something to ponder is that if our particular universe is a generated construct, why create the illusion of time, planets, stars, galaxies, intelligence, emotions, and sensory perceptions? Why make it appear that our existence is dependent on biological processes? Why not simply manifest pure unadulterated consciousness?
Could it be the case that taking the scenic route produces better results? Or are we avatars in some sort of grand control system? One thing is for certain: If some vastly powerful system has created more than one universe, we are not at the top of the pyramid. After all, if we were the master universe makers, then logically we'd be aware that we have created other universes below ours.
However our technology for simulating universes is only in its infancy. The logic of this situation means there are only two possibilities Either we're in the only universe that exists, or at the bottom of the pyramid. Whatever the case may be, we cannot be at any mid-point, where other universes exist both above and below ours."
Copyright 1999-2020 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
The Metaphysics of Consciousness
By J. Randall Murphy
"In my all too common metaphysical reflections, it has occurred to me, and likely others along the way, that if the totality of our being is some sort of generated construct, then perhaps what we call consciousness is not necessarily dependent on what we perceive to be our material selves. This is not so much a contradiction to the situation outlined in my previous post, Why Afterlives Are Impossible, as it is a sort of loophole.
The reason for this is that in Why Afterlives are Impossible, the initial premises are such that any afterlife person would of logical necessity be at best only a copy of their original, and therefore continuity of personhood is not preserved. However, if it is the case that the totality of our universe is generated by something external to it, then everything we think of as real is nothing more than a rendering.
By extension, if it is the case that everything we think of as real is only a rendering generated by some vastly powerful system that lies outside this realm, it would follow that each moment in time is analogous to a single frame in a filmstrip; in which case the issue of our afterlife selves being copies becomes moot, because we and everything else in our realm are already only copies.
The sticky part of this model is that it still doesn't offer any explanation for consciousness. We may identify or empathize with the characters we see on a screen in a movie theatre, but we also know that they are only illusions created by a machine. They are nothing more than reflections from a surface. They have no personal experience of what it's like to be the characters they represent.
Why then, if we too are nothing more than a complex rendering, do we have the experience of being such a thing? This is an example of what philosopher David Chalmers calls The Hard Problem of Consciousness (HPC). To date, nobody has been able to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, and it is the opinion of those who favor a philosophical position called New Mysterianism, that humans will never find the answer.
Personally, I share the sentiments of the New Mysterians, but at the same time point out that the situation allows us to make certain inferences. For example, although we may never be able to explain consciousness, we can still accept that it exists, and therefore has a relationship to other things which exist, including other conscious beings. This leads to what psychologists and philosophers call intersubjectivity.
In theory, intersubjectivity crosses all boundaries. Together with the our natural instinct for social behavior, this might explain why people seek to commune with something beyond this realm, or if there is no such realm, create one in their own minds to fill the void. Whatever the actual situation may be, this common denominator has the potential to unite conscious beings wherever they may be.
Something to ponder is that if our particular universe is a generated construct, why create the illusion of time, planets, stars, galaxies, intelligence, emotions, and sensory perceptions? Why make it appear that our existence is dependent on biological processes? Why not simply manifest pure unadulterated consciousness?
Could it be the case that taking the scenic route produces better results? Or are we avatars in some sort of grand control system? One thing is for certain: If some vastly powerful system has created more than one universe, we are not at the top of the pyramid. After all, if we were the master universe makers, then logically we'd be aware that we have created other universes below ours.
However our technology for simulating universes is only in its infancy. The logic of this situation means there are only two possibilities Either we're in the only universe that exists, or at the bottom of the pyramid. Whatever the case may be, we cannot be at any mid-point, where other universes exist both above and below ours."
Copyright 1999-2020 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I have offered the basic foundation already. It's just a matter of working it through. Perhaps I shouldn't take for granted that everyone else can do that with the same ease and confidence as I do. Or perhaps I am overestimating my powers of deduction. Either way, I'll have to get to those details later. This week's guest was a no show, so it's been a bit of a panic to find a fill-in.
True. I am just presently in the camp with the opinion that the HPC cannot be solved. If I were in the camp that claims that we do know the HPC can be solved, then logically, I would also know the solution ( which I don't ). Therefore those who think the HPC can be solved are either exaggerating or simply expressing an opinion ( same as me ). However that does not mean both opinions carry equal weight. Some opinions really do carry more weight than others based on how well they are formed, and the pro side of the debate seems somewhat lacking ( to me ) in this regard.
Perhaps I need to clarify that my comment was given in reference to the conceptual discussions we've engaged in rather than the technical side e.g. the neuroscience and physics of consciousness. There is much left to explore from a technical standpoint. But at best it can only map the apparent correlations rather than resolve the fundamental conceptual problems e.g. the HPC. For us here in this discussion to make any progress, we'd need to be genetic engineers or neuroscientists. I don't see how we can go any deeper ontologically. But I'm open to surprises.
Quite agreed.
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Constance said:
"So if you propose that there is a physicalist model that overcomes de Quincey's panpsychism, why not identify or describe it here?"
OK. I'll look forward to your doing so. The question is what 'basic foundation' have you offered for a 'physicalism' that overcomes or nullifies de Quincey's panpsychism, so in your representation you'll need to both a) define this 'basic physicalist foundation', and b) demonstrate how it rules out panpsychism as de Q. explicates it.
So you hold an "opinion that the HPC cannot be solved. Fine. But your opposition is not a "camp that claims that we do know the HPC can be solved." No one makes this latter claim of knowledge, but many researchers and thinkers remain open to the expectation that with sufficient future interdisciplinary understanding of the nature of consciousness, we can and will solve the hard problem. On what basis do you presently rule out that possibility or eventually?
It seems you are presenting another example of what de Quincey refers to as 'Promissory Materialism'. It would be better to check your physicalist/materialist/objectivist presuppositions at the door when entering into the context of the interdisciplinary issues raised in Consciousness Studies and long pursued in this thread.
"So if you propose that there is a physicalist model that overcomes de Quincey's panpsychism, why not identify or describe it here?"
OK. I'll look forward to your doing so. The question is what 'basic foundation' have you offered for a 'physicalism' that overcomes or nullifies de Quincey's panpsychism, so in your representation you'll need to both a) define this 'basic physicalist foundation', and b) demonstrate how it rules out panpsychism as de Q. explicates it.
So you hold an "opinion that the HPC cannot be solved. Fine. But your opposition is not a "camp that claims that we do know the HPC can be solved." No one makes this latter claim of knowledge, but many researchers and thinkers remain open to the expectation that with sufficient future interdisciplinary understanding of the nature of consciousness, we can and will solve the hard problem. On what basis do you presently rule out that possibility or eventually?
It seems you are presenting another example of what de Quincey refers to as 'Promissory Materialism'. It would be better to check your physicalist/materialist/objectivist presuppositions at the door when entering into the context of the interdisciplinary issues raised in Consciousness Studies and long pursued in this thread.
This paper is helpful for an understanding of De Quincey's panpsychism and of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological philosophy.
Marie Vandekerckhove and Jaak Pnksepp, "The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: A vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures"
Article· Literature Review (PDF Available) in Consciousness and Cognition 18(4):1018-28 · September 2009 with 775 Reads
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.08.002 · Source: PubMed
(PDF) The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: A vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures
Marie Vandekerckhove and Jaak Pnksepp, "The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: A vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures"
Article· Literature Review (PDF Available) in Consciousness and Cognition 18(4):1018-28 · September 2009 with 775 Reads
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.08.002 · Source: PubMed
(PDF) The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: A vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
God I wish I had the kind of time I would need to summarize everything I've already said, suffice it to say that I'm not dealing exclusively with de Quincey's view, but panpsychist views in general, including those aspects that may intersect with de Quincey's version. To deal with every aspect of Quincey's version that there may be, de Quincey's participation would be necessary, and it would require far more time than either of us would likely want to spend on it.
You're right, I'm in the camp that holds the opinion that the HPC cannot be solved. I certainly would not place the largest portion of my philosophical investment in the camp of "researchers and thinkers" who base their "expectations" on not knowing. That sort of thing is called faith. But at the same time I still think we all need a little faith.
Who made that ruleIt seems you are presenting another example of what de Quincey refers to as 'Promissory Materialism'. It would be better to check your physicalist/materialist/objectivist presuppositions at the door when entering into the context of the interdisciplinary issues raised in Consciousness Studies and long pursued in this thread.
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Ah, so you are standing with/upon your original presuppositions concerning the nature of reality. I had the impression from some of your posts in the latter part of Part 12 that you had recognized that materialism/physicalism/objectivism cannot account for consciousness. Okay, so be it. It seems we have nothing further to talk about then.