Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

When you nail Consciousness down to specific Conscious Experiences like Redness, the Standard A Tone, or the Salty Taste, the urge to think that these are a result of the action of Electric or Magnetic Fields evaporates. .[.. ]It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

Last first: we use metaphor to compare things we know with newer things that we don't know, or understand. The idea of consciousness being based on - not just "being" - a field of some kind is compelling to me, if no-one else. Metaphor is unaffected by the differences in the things being compared. ... That doesn't make the metaphor accurate or correct, of course.

As for your first observation, consciousness is not easy to pin down, or even to understand. It is not obviously or simply related to fields, but then it is difficult to relate a work of artistic literature to letters and printing-presses too. Our understanding of consciousness is as you have described before: we have little or none. So, at this early point in our investigations, we speculate and wonder. Later, if our wonderings lead to anything substantive, we can start being more formal in our reasoning. But for now, guesswork is all we have.

[Consul]

Saying Consciousness is somehow related to Fields takes advantage of the ambiguousness of the word Consciousness. When you nail Consciousness down to specific Conscious Experiences like Redness, the Standard A Tone, or the Salty Taste, the urge to think that these are a result of the action of Electric or Magnetic Fields evaporates. The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience. What would be a chain of Logic that takes you from Fields to Conscious Experience. I just cannot see any Logic to it. But as I always say everything is on the table with regard to Conscious Experience, so this could, in the end, be right.

There is nothing incoherent about saying that particular experiences are particular patterns of electric brainwaves. The logic is simply the logic of identity. There is nothing incoherent about saying that phenomenal consciousness as a whole is a "symphony" of brainwaves, which is analytically decomposable into elementary neuroelectric processes and explainable in terms of combinations, interactions, and superpositions of those.

[Consul]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

QUOTE>
"EEG is believed to be generated largely by synaptic current sources that we characterize as global fields of synaptic action (Nunez 1974a, 1981, 1995; 2000a,b; Nunez and Srinivasan 2006). These synaptic action fields are the (short-time) modulations in number densities of active excitatory and inhibitory synapses about background levels, analogous to sound waves, which are short-time modulations about background pressure. The word “field” used here and in the physical sciences denotes any continuous mathematical function of time and location, in this case the number densities of active excitatory and inhibitory synapses in each cortical tissue mass. Defined in this manner, the existence of these fields is non-controversial; the only open question is whether they are useful descriptors in neuroscience. We introduce the synaptic action fields for two reasons (1) The neocortical excitatory and inhibitory synaptic action fields are believed to underlie the electric (EEG) and magnetic fields (MEG) recorded at the scalp (2) We conjecture that these fields may act (top down) on networks, thereby facilitating important dynamic interactions between remote (and perhaps unconnected) networks. Here we use the label “top down” to indicate the hierarchical influence of large scale systems on smaller scale systems, consistent with its use in the physical sciences."

(Nunez, Paul L., and Ramesh Srinivasan. "A theoretical basis for standing and traveling brain waves measured with human EEG with implications for an integrated consciousness." 2006.)
<QUOTE

[UniversalAlien]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them
- made electricity seem interesting.

We've all seen images of the brain showing how the electricity is hypothetically working.

And what is the similarity between the radio [or TV, cell phone, etc.} ? They are interpreting electricity, that you can not see, flowing through space. Filtering out electrical patterns that have been broadcast elsewhere. By the same token the Human brain is filtering out patterns of consciousness - Filtering and interpreting as is your TV and cell phone.

But what is the brain filtering and interpreting if not patterns of consciousness? Again the consciousness has to be there for the brain to work - it is 'a prior'. So is the World that the brain is existent in dependent on 'a priori' consciousness.

Therefor "Why All Current Scientific Theories Of Consciousness Fail" is because they fail to accept the Panpsychist truth:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck

[Belindi]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them
- made electricity seem interesting.

We've all seen images of the brain showing how the electricity is hypothetically working.

And what is the similarity between the radio [or TV, cell phone, etc.} ? They are interpreting electricity, that you can not see, flowing through space. Filtering out electrical patterns that have been broadcast elsewhere. By the same token the Human brain is filtering out patterns of consciousness - Filtering and interpreting as is your TV and cell phone.

But what is the brain filtering and interpreting if not patterns of consciousness? Again the consciousness has to be there for the brain to work - it is 'a prior'. So is the World that the brain is existent in dependent on 'a priori' consciousness.

Therefor "Why All Current Scientific Theories Of Consciousness Fail" is because they fail to accept the Panpsychist truth:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck

'Experience' is a better word than 'consciousness' when we are talking metaphysics, as 'consciousness' has such a strong connotation of physiology.

I agree with the reference to the metaphysics of Spinoza, that Spinoza's metaphysics is infused with panpsychism. Spinoza's valued 'adequate ideas', and adequacy is relative. Truth is coherence not correspondence with a priori fact.

Materialism (physicalism) and science depend on ideas and experiences and to be an idealist (immaterialist) is not to disparage materialism. Materialism is a subsection of idealism.

[Pattern-chaser]

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them...

Er, no, you couldn't. You saw the thermal radiation from the heating coils in the valves. Electricity is invisible.

[SteveKlinko]

When you nail Consciousness down to specific Conscious Experiences like Redness, the Standard A Tone, or the Salty Taste, the urge to think that these are a result of the action of Electric or Magnetic Fields evaporates. .[.. ]It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

Last first: we use metaphor to compare things we know with newer things that we don't know, or understand. The idea of consciousness being based on - not just "being" - a field of some kind is compelling to me, if no-one else. Metaphor is unaffected by the differences in the things being compared. ... That doesn't make the metaphor accurate or correct, of course.

As for your first observation, consciousness is not easy to pin down, or even to understand. It is not obviously or simply related to fields, but then it is difficult to relate a work of artistic literature to letters and printing-presses too. Our understanding of consciousness is as you have described before: we have little or none. So, at this early point in our investigations, we speculate and wonder. Later, if our wonderings lead to anything substantive, we can start being more formal in our reasoning. But for now, guesswork is all we have.

Exactly.

[SteveKlinko]

Saying Consciousness is somehow related to Fields takes advantage of the ambiguousness of the word Consciousness. When you nail Consciousness down to specific Conscious Experiences like Redness, the Standard A Tone, or the Salty Taste, the urge to think that these are a result of the action of Electric or Magnetic Fields evaporates. The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience. What would be a chain of Logic that takes you from Fields to Conscious Experience. I just cannot see any Logic to it. But as I always say everything is on the table with regard to Conscious Experience, so this could, in the end, be right.

There is nothing incoherent about saying that particular experiences are particular patterns of electric brainwaves. The logic is simply the logic of identity. There is nothing incoherent about saying that phenomenal consciousness as a whole is a "symphony" of brainwaves, which is analytically decomposable into elementary neuroelectric processes and explainable in terms of combinations, interactions, and superpositions of those.

But there has to be at least one simple Clue that Brain Waves are involved in Conscious Experience. I have never heard of any Logical line of reasoning that can take Brain Waves as the starting point and then make me say: Wow yes, I see that, how did I ever not see that.

[SteveKlinko]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

A legitimate Speculation. Next step, how does this Explain Something like the Conscious Experience of Redness? Huge Explanatory Gap here as with all theories of C.

[SteveKlinko]

I don't know if it's true, but the idea of phenomenal consciousness as a dynamic field of brainwaves is very interesting.

QUOTE>
"EEG is believed to be generated largely by synaptic current sources that we characterize as global fields of synaptic action (Nunez 1974a, 1981, 1995; 2000a,b; Nunez and Srinivasan 2006). These synaptic action fields are the (short-time) modulations in number densities of active excitatory and inhibitory synapses about background levels, analogous to sound waves, which are short-time modulations about background pressure. The word “field” used here and in the physical sciences denotes any continuous mathematical function of time and location, in this case the number densities of active excitatory and inhibitory synapses in each cortical tissue mass. Defined in this manner, the existence of these fields is non-controversial; the only open question is whether they are useful descriptors in neuroscience. We introduce the synaptic action fields for two reasons (1) The neocortical excitatory and inhibitory synaptic action fields are believed to underlie the electric (EEG) and magnetic fields (MEG) recorded at the scalp (2) We conjecture that these fields may act (top down) on networks, thereby facilitating important dynamic interactions between remote (and perhaps unconnected) networks. Here we use the label “top down” to indicate the hierarchical influence of large scale systems on smaller scale systems, consistent with its use in the physical sciences."

(Nunez, Paul L., and Ramesh Srinivasan. "A theoretical basis for standing and traveling brain waves measured with human EEG with implications for an integrated consciousness." 2006.)
<QUOTE

If the Conscious Visual Experience is encoded on Brain Waves in some way, then Science should be able to read the Visual Experience because Science can measure Brain Waves. From what I know about Brain Waves there is just not that much going on at any given time to even Coherently think that something like the Visual Experience is in the Brain Waves.

[SteveKlinko]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them
- made electricity seem interesting.

We've all seen images of the brain showing how the electricity is hypothetically working.

And what is the similarity between the radio [or TV, cell phone, etc.} ? They are interpreting electricity, that you can not see, flowing through space. Filtering out electrical patterns that have been broadcast elsewhere. By the same token the Human brain is filtering out patterns of consciousness - Filtering and interpreting as is your TV and cell phone.

But what is the brain filtering and interpreting if not patterns of consciousness? Again the consciousness has to be there for the brain to work - it is 'a prior'. So is the World that the brain is existent in dependent on 'a priori' consciousness.

Therefor "Why All Current Scientific Theories Of Consciousness Fail" is because they fail to accept the Panpsychist truth:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck

Actually, Panpsychism also fails. All theories of Consciousness fail because they ironically do not Explain Consciousness, or more specifically, Conscious Experience itself. How does Panpsychism Explain the Conscious Visual Experience that is embedded in the front of our faces? What is the Experience of Redness? What is the Experience of the Standard A Tone? What is the Experience of the Salty Taste? And so on?

[SteveKlinko]

The proposition that a Magnetic or an Electromagnetic Field is the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone or the Salty Taste is Incoherent as a premise. It is Incoherent because of the categorical difference between Fields and Conscious Experience.

A dualist could argue that in addition to the space-pervading fields of physical quanta there is also a space-pervading field of psychical qualia.

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)
———
"The philosophy of mind may well lead us to conclude that a purely physical schedule of tropes is insufficient. That is the issue of the adequacy of materialism; the two great stumbling-blocks to a materialist account of mentality are, of course, the intentionality of thought and the qualia in sensation. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that both these aspects of consciousness resist reduction, we shall be required to add one or more kinds of consciousness tropes to our basic schedule.

But even here, a space-time-filling field kind of trope is an attractive conjecture. For the facts of continuity, among living forms, and in the embryonic development of each individual, invite interpretation on a basis that accords mentality in degrees rather than in any yes-no fashion. And these lower and higher degrees of mentality can be spread through the regions occupied by less-and-more convoluted combinations of the physical fields. The continuity problem, for irreducible mentality, invites a panpsychist solution.

This will add field-like mental tropes to the interpenetrating physical fields. And in keeping with our Platonic insistence on real causal power for all fields, additional non-physical fields will bring with them an at least one-way, and probably two-way, Interactionist view of the mind-body problem."

(Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. p. 151)
<QUOTE

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them
- made electricity seem interesting.

We've all seen images of the brain showing how the electricity is hypothetically working.

And what is the similarity between the radio [or TV, cell phone, etc.} ? They are interpreting electricity, that you can not see, flowing through space. Filtering out electrical patterns that have been broadcast elsewhere. By the same token the Human brain is filtering out patterns of consciousness - Filtering and interpreting as is your TV and cell phone.

But what is the brain filtering and interpreting if not patterns of consciousness? Again the consciousness has to be there for the brain to work - it is 'a prior'. So is the World that the brain is existent in dependent on 'a priori' consciousness.

Therefor "Why All Current Scientific Theories Of Consciousness Fail" is because they fail to accept the Panpsychist truth:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck

'Experience' is a better word than 'consciousness' when we are talking metaphysics, as 'consciousness' has such a strong connotation of physiology.

I agree with the reference to the metaphysics of Spinoza, that Spinoza's metaphysics is infused with panpsychism. Spinoza's valued 'adequate ideas', and adequacy is relative. Truth is coherence not correspondence with a priori fact.

Materialism (physicalism) and science depend on ideas and experiences and to be an idealist (immaterialist) is not to disparage materialism. Materialism is a subsection of idealism.

Yes, Consciousness is almost meaningless because people think it is so many different things. I also think that there is really no such thing as some generalized Consciousness concept. There is only Conscious Experience. Without some kind of Conscious Experience there is no Consciousness.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, Consciousness is almost meaningless because people think it is so many different things. I also think that there is really no such thing as some generalized Consciousness concept. There is only Conscious Experience. Without some kind of Conscious Experience there is no Consciousness.

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

[Belindi]

Consul quoted:

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)

Within the quotation is the implication that there are entities the author calls "conscious minds". David Hume noted " the self is nothing over and above a constantly varying bundle of experiences".(Stanford). The human bundle of experiences is a larger more complex bundle than that of a clam for instance, not to mention bundles such as garden rakes, or computers. Each thing is a bundle of experiences _(maybe only a simple off or on experience)_ . I admit that seems daft but why stop at living organisms? Can things that are not sentient not experience even if they lack all memory of what they experience?

Let's call the C-thing 'experiences' . Experiences would be incoherent unless they are experiences of particular bundles as differentiated from their environments. It is sentience that makes it possible for humans and other life forms to differentiate self and not-self. Not-self is that which does not share the same quale.