Or maybe it is: in the last few years, several scientists and philosophers, Chalmers and Koch among them, have begun to look seriously again at a viewpoint so bizarre that it has been neglected for more than a century, except among followers of eastern spiritual traditions, or in the kookier corners of the new age. This is “panpsychism”, the dizzying notion that everything in the universe might be conscious, or at least potentially conscious, or conscious when put into certain configurations. Koch concedes that this sounds ridiculous: when he mentions panpsychism, he has written, “I often encounter blank stares of incomprehension.” But when it comes to grappling with the Hard Problem, crazy-sounding theories are an occupational hazard. Besides, panpsychism might help unravel an enigma that has attached to the study of consciousness from the start: if humans have it, and apes have it, and dogs and pigs probably have it, and maybe birds, too – well, where does it stop?
…The argument unfolds as follows: physicists have no problem accepting that certain fundamental aspects of reality – such as space, mass, or electrical charge – just do exist. They can’t be explained as being the result of anything else. Explanations have to stop somewhere. The panpsychist hunch is that consciousness could be like that, too – and that if it is, there is no particular reason to assume that it only occurs in certain kinds of matter.
This seems like a perfect place to link to this Existential Comic about Chalmers and panpsychism, while strongly recommending that you peruse the entire archives and read a new comic there every Monday.
Now, then, you’ve heard me several times before express provisional agreement with Spinoza’s brand of panpsychism, so this time, I’ll change it up a little and cite Alan Watts saying pretty much the same thing, that while we commonly think of human intelligence as some sort of alien phenomenon in the universe, stranded in cold isolation as if it were “dropped” here with no hope of rescue, it may be both more comforting and accurate to think of it growing out of the world in the same way that apples grow out of an apple tree. From this viewpoint, conscious thought is a latent characteristic of “dumb, brute” nature, not an absurd aberration. Pile up enough rocks and dirt in the right conditions for long enough, and they’ll start “peopling”. If that sounds uncomfortably teleological and religious for your taste, well, just keep in mind that if Spinoza had lived anywhere else in Europe besides the Netherlands, he would have probably been executed for the threat his ideas posed to institutional religion, rather than merely being excommunicated and shunned. Entertaining the notion that consciousness could be a fundamental aspect of existence itself doesn’t necessarily lead to a belief in gods, souls and holy scripture.
January 27, 2015 @ 9:54 pm
Hey, Damian:
A contrarian viewpoint:
The …gloomy,even…dour…interpretation of this expressed by the Matthew M character in True Detective?
"True Detective: The Long Bright Dark (#1.1)" (2014)
Rustin Cohle: I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist… I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself – we are creatures that should not exist by natural law… We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everbody's nobody… I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction – one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.
January 28, 2015 @ 1:48 am
Yeah, I don't know if you can argue someone out of that viewpoint. I think most people just outgrow it somehow, assuming they don't kill themselves first.
At any rate, unless you share with Christians the idea that humans are unique and special, the human race voluntarily ceasing to exist doesn't end consciousness nor suffering. Our corpses would only nourish the scavengers and soil, and the whole cycle would continue on without us. And barring a belief in a conscious afterlife, we wouldn't even have the satisfaction of having opted out of an immoral world. Consciousness would still exist in some of the "higher" animals at least, and nature would still be red in tooth and claw.
I guess what I'm saying is choosing to commit suicide or at least not reproduce doesn't prevent suffering per se; it only perhaps relieves one's individual suffering.
January 28, 2015 @ 5:44 pm
Experience the illusion in style: in a Lincoln!
January 28, 2015 @ 5:35 pm
Good points, all, Damian. Of course, Rusty does just that, priveleges human conscioussness. Which any dog or cat owner knows from "anecdotal" experience is problably not very accurate indeed! LOL.
Now, the world's wordiest cosmicist (LOL), Benjamin Craig at Rants Within the Undead God, would also say that is humanity's duty to transcend through "art" the horror of nature.
January 29, 2015 @ 2:06 am
"I don't drive a Lincoln Continental just because they pay me to…. " OMG what a dick! And after seeming so cool! I think he's doing it on purpose. Shit, now I think he's cool again. Mine the system all you can. I mean, without causing serious harm.
January 29, 2015 @ 12:32 am
Someone explain that joke to Damian. He don't watch much TV.
January 29, 2015 @ 12:46 am
I figured it was a reference to a commercial. Am I right?
January 31, 2015 @ 1:54 pm
Well, as long as he's telling the truth, I guess. If Honda heard about how I'd gotten over a half-million miles out of one of their Accords and offered me a metric fuckton of money to state for the record that I drive Hondas, I'd snap it up in a second and my artistic integrity would remain serenely unruffled.
Hey, I watched the whole first season of The Librarians this month.
February 2, 2015 @ 6:15 pm
Yeah, I don't really blame him for cashing in. But it's the pseudo-intellectual BS that follows that first statement ("You have to go back to move forward.", etc.) is what's causing all the buzz. There's a certain kind of salemanship – feigned emotion wrought sincerity – that just seems, um, unseemly.