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

[Consul]

Nonanimal organisms are very different from grains of sand, but they are also very different from animals with central nervous systems.

That is not your prior claim.
In terms of subjectively your claim is that microbes and plants are completely identical to grains of sand but utterly different to brained animals.

Yes, my claim is that nonanimal organisms are as nonconscious as grains of sand. Nonetheless, nonconscious living things and nonconscious nonliving ones are strikingly different.

[Sy Borg]

Nonanimal organisms are very different from grains of sand, but they are also very different from animals with central nervous systems.

That is not your prior claim.
In terms of subjectively your claim is that microbes and plants are completely identical to grains of sand but utterly different to brained animals.

Yes, my claim is that nonanimal organisms are as nonconscious as grains of sand. Nonetheless, nonconscious living things and nonconscious nonliving ones are strikingly different.

Today's orthodoxy does not accept grey areas in this arena, although the more we learn, the more the margins between life and non-life, and intelligent life and simple life have becoming blurred. Still, scientists tend to stick with standard dogma until there is a compelling reason to change; in science one must always assume the most conservative possible answer in lieu of further evidence. That does not mean it's right.

At this stage, the significantly insufficient knowledge base as regards both life and consciousness means that the "unconscious universe model" remains the standard placeholder concept, like dark energy, dark matter and the singularity of black holes. The fact is that, if panpsychism was true and we were in fact surrounded by micro-consciousness, or even contained within a larger consciousness, we would have no way of knowing, no way of testing if it was true.

At this stage, such technology and knowhow seems unlikely to be developed because medical and economic priorities dictate that almost all such future research will be put into the human brain and AI, with relatively few studies into simpler brains. AI research at least offers some small promise in terms of detecting consciousness in non-humans, but I doubt that an AI's potential experience will be of interest to those providing the funding, only their functionality.

[Consul]

The fact is that, if panpsychism was true and we were in fact surrounded by micro-consciousness, or even contained within a larger consciousness, we would have no way of knowing, no way of testing if it was true.

So much the worse for panpsychism! Its untestability makes it scientifically worthless.

At this stage, such technology and knowhow seems unlikely to be developed because medical and economic priorities dictate that almost all such future research will be put into the human brain and AI, with relatively few studies into simpler brains. AI research at least offers some small promise in terms of detecting consciousness in non-humans, but I doubt that an AI's potential experience will be of interest to those providing the funding, only their functionality.

As far as I can see, animal cognition and animal consciousness are thriving fields of inquiry!

By the way, a conscious AI robot would be an artificial animal with an artificial brain; so its existence wouldn't refute the claim that natural consciousness is had by brained animals only.

[Sy Borg]

The fact is that, if panpsychism was true and we were in fact surrounded by micro-consciousness, or even contained within a larger consciousness, we would have no way of knowing, no way of testing if it was true.

So much the worse for panpsychism! Its untestability makes it scientifically worthless.

So the untestable is not worth considering as a possibility? Just a couple of thousand years ago Democritus's idea of atoma (atoms) was purely speculative and unproveable.

If something is untestable, then it cannot be ruled out as a possibility. I think this is especially the case when relatively simple organisms certainly do appear to be experiencing their lives without neurons.

Do you think it possible that the current orthodoxy is missing something, or would you class current findings as final?

At this stage, such technology and knowhow seems unlikely to be developed because medical and economic priorities dictate that almost all such future research will be put into the human brain and AI, with relatively few studies into simpler brains. AI research at least offers some small promise in terms of detecting consciousness in non-humans, but I doubt that an AI's potential experience will be of interest to those providing the funding, only their functionality.

As far as I can see, animal cognition and animal consciousness are thriving fields of inquiry!

The research is almost exclusively about brains. Surprise, surprise :) Humans have especially good brains so they think brains are super important, be they brains in humans or in other animals in "The Clever Club".

Does any research into the way brainless organisms feel their lives even happen? Would that research enjoy even a millionth of the resources put into brain research?

The law of averages suggests that there must be the occasional lonely and under-resourced researcher struggling to understand our "poor relations" in nature in some dank underground lab. Research into how brainless organisms sense their environment and centrally organise those inputs is surely more a backwater than a thriving field of inquiry. Compare that arena with the social relevance and glamour of neuroscience, with its multi-billions in funding. As always, Big Neuroscience crapping on the small researcher :)

By the way, a conscious AI robot would be an artificial animal with an artificial brain; so its existence wouldn't refute the claim that natural consciousness is had by brained animals only.

Yet researchers have no way of knowing whether AI feels its life any more than do trees or amoebas.

[Belindi]

I suggest an electronic robot is a centre of experience of one parameter of change: on/off.

[Consul]

So much the worse for panpsychism! Its untestability makes it scientifically worthless.

So the untestable is not worth considering as a possibility? Just a couple of thousand years ago Democritus's idea of atoma (atoms) was purely speculative and unproveable.
If something is untestable, then it cannot be ruled out as a possibility. I think this is especially the case when relatively simple organisms certainly do appear to be experiencing their lives without neurons.
Do you think it possible that the current orthodoxy is missing something, or would you class current findings as final?

Panpsychism is a dead end from the scientific perspective. As the history of natural science (physics, chemistry, pre-zoological biology) demonstrates, its progress and success don't depend on psychological concepts and theories, which is a very good reason to believe that there aren't any mental/experiential entities involved in the phenomena to be explained.

Generally, if some phenomenon can be fully explained without any reference to Xs, then Xs (probably) aren't involved in it. For example, psychotic behavior can be fully explained without any reference to demonic possession, so it's reasonable to believe that demons aren't involved in and responsible for it.

This general line of reasoning undermines nonepiphenomenalistic panpsychism, but it is compatible with epiphenomenalistic panpsychism, according to which all material objects have impotent mental/experiential qualities the having of which makes no difference whatsoever to the causal dynamics of the world; so they needn't be mentioned in any causal explanations.

Epiphenomenalistic physicalistic panpsychism will always be an empirically irrefutable metaphysical option, but why should anybody take it seriously or even seriously believe in it? That its truth is logically possible doesn't give us any reason to believe it's true. Panpsychism's truth is logically possible, but neither plausible nor probable. On the contrary, panpsychism is plausibly and probably false!

Anyway, how single molecules, atoms, and particles could realize mental/experiential states in and by themselves is incomprehensibly mysterious no matter whether those states are epiphenomenal or not!

Atomism had been untestable in practice for a very long time, but panpsychism isn't only untestable in practice but also in principle.

As far as I can see, animal cognition and animal consciousness are thriving fields of inquiry!

The research is almost exclusively about brains. Surprise, surprise Humans have especially good brains so they think brains are super important, be they brains in humans or in other animals in "The Clever Club".

Does any research into the way brainless organisms feel their lives even happen? Would that research enjoy even a millionth of the resources put into brain research?

The law of averages suggests that there must be the occasional lonely and under-resourced researcher struggling to understand our "poor relations" in nature in some dank underground lab. Research into how brainless organisms sense their environment and centrally organise those inputs is surely more a backwater than a thriving field of inquiry. Compare that arena with the social relevance and glamour of neuroscience, with its multi-billions in funding. As always, Big Neuroscience crapping on the small researcher.

The financial situation of biology departments dealing with nonanimal organisms is unknown to me, but it seems research in bacteriology, mycology, phytology (botany), and protozoology is doing fine.
I'm not talking about "research into the way brainless organisms feel their lives," because the scientists believing in nonanimal phenomenal consciousness seem to be a tiny minority within the biological community.

[Consul]

I'm not talking about "research into the way brainless organisms feel their lives," because the scientists believing in nonanimal phenomenal consciousness seem to be a tiny minority within the biological community.

Hasn't biology shown that in the course of evolution (C)NS-less organisms have found various experience-independent ways of solving their life problems? Why devalue the potentials of life (living nature) by claiming that it cannot prosper and succeed without the help of (phenomenal) conciousness?

[Pattern-chaser]

So much the worse for panpsychism! Its untestability makes it scientifically worthless.

I don't see that this is relevant. Panpsychism is not a scientific concept to begin with, so its untestability doesn't really add anything to our understanding. We already knew it was not a subject that is suitable for consideration by science or scientists. That doesn't mean that it is unsuitable for any kind of consideration, serious or superficial, but only that science is not an appropriate tool to use for that particular task.

[Pattern-chaser]

So the untestable is not worth considering as a possibility? Just a couple of thousand years ago Democritus's idea of atoma (atoms) was purely speculative and unproveable.
If something is untestable, then it cannot be ruled out as a possibility. I think this is especially the case when relatively simple organisms certainly do appear to be experiencing their lives without neurons.
Do you think it possible that the current orthodoxy is missing something, or would you class current findings as final?

Panpsychism is a dead end from the scientific perspective.

Yes, you already said that, and (as far as I can see or understand) you are correct to say so. But you have not answered, or even acknowledged, the question Sy Borg asked: "So the untestable is not worth considering as a possibility?"

[Sy Borg]

I'm not talking about "research into the way brainless organisms feel their lives," because the scientists believing in nonanimal phenomenal consciousness seem to be a tiny minority within the biological community.

Hasn't biology shown that in the course of evolution (C)NS-less organisms have found various experience-independent ways of solving their life problems? Why devalue the potentials of life (living nature) by claiming that it cannot prosper and succeed without the help of (phenomenal) conciousness?

Biology has not shown that.

Biology shows that organisms without brains have survived and reproduced, but that says nothing as to whether they experience their lives or not.

I would think that the "biological robot" notion is more devaluing to life than the idea that waking life and consciousness are inextricably linked - not that life will worry over our perceptions :)

[Belindi]

What is experience?
Experience of self as different from the other. Some if not most animals have no conception of self, and more importantly some animals are not so much individual selfs as they are collectives.

Non-conscious experience of reacting or not reacting to a stimulus; some sorts of sedation but not all sedation causes loss of spinal reflexes.

Conscious experience of not reacting to a stimulus.

Plants react to stimuli.

There is no difference in kind , but there seems to be a difference in degree, between causing a river to flow along a canal, and causing an animal to feel pain. However what is the difference a degree of? Why morally elevate some functions of nervous system to define higher status?

[Consul]

Panpsychism is a dead end from the scientific perspective.

Yes, you already said that, and (as far as I can see or understand) you are correct to say so. But you have not answered, or even acknowledged, the question Sy Borg asked: "So the untestable is not worth considering as a possibility?"

I've posted my reply in that thread, because it's too off-topic here: viewtopic.php?p=391791#p391791