[MD] atomic preferences and panexperientialism (panpyschism)

Sun Aug 29 10:11:48 PDT 2010

only 2 Little remarks , Dave.
1)
Julian huxley, mentioned in your summary, was the brother of..Aldous huxley,
and he was the main engine behind the launching of
the Neo-Darwinism as accepted widely these days. I think he was also related
to Ch Darwin,but i'm not sure.
2) switching to overkill-modus? was it raining outside?------what a fucking
quality-explosion.

2010/8/29 david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>

>
> Krimel said to dmb:
> In bed with a metaphysical SOMer you now seek a three way with a Christian
> bio-theologian IDer, who says, "In so far as any line is drawn it is
> completely arbitrary. The logical alternative is to propose that there is no
> line of demarcation any more than there is a line between living and non
> living in evolution."  That squares with Pirsig's discrete and feuding
> inorganic and biological levels how?   BTW, does he know who you're are
> sleeping with these days?
>
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> As shocking as it may seem, I actually agree with Platt about at least one
> thing; you are using personal insults to dismiss the messenger INSTEAD of
> dealing with the message. Everyone knows that ad hominem attacks are not a
> valid. Even non-philosophers know this. This is especially bogus in the case
> with panpsychism. This view has been a respectable and valid philosophical
> option since the very beginning. It stretches from Heraclitus to Chalmers.
> It's simply ignorant to dismiss the idea as flakey new-age nonsense. One
> certainly doesn't have to be an advocate of Christianity or intelligent
> design either. If you dismiss every thinker who ever thought panpsychism was
> plausible, you'd have to dismiss about half of the philosophers who ever
> lived. And you don't have to take my word for it. Look it up and see for
> yourself. Here is an excerpt from a peer-reviewed encyclopedia article. This
> part just covers the last century or so but it goes all the way back to the
> pre-Socratic philo
>  sophers.This section stretches from William James to David Chalmers and
> you'll see that panpsychism, "offers a naturalistic escape from Cartesian
> dualism and Christian theology".
> Twentieth Century to the PresentWilliam James first addressed the subject
> of panpsychism in his Principles of Psychology. He devoted a full chapter to
> Clifford’s mind-stuff theory, and displayed notable sympathy to the view.
> James’ first personal endorsement of panpsychism came in his Harvard lecture
> notes of 1902-3, in which he noted, “pragmatism would be [my] method and
> ‘pluralistic panpsychism’ [my] doctrine” (Perry, 1935: 373). In his 1905-6
> lecture notes he observed: “Our only intelligible notion of an object in
> itself is that it should be an object for itself, and this lands us in
> panpsychism and a belief that our physical perceptions are effects on us of
> ‘psychical’ realities…” (ibid: 446).
> James arrived at a clear and unambiguous position in his 1909 book, A
> Pluralistic Universe. He explained that his theory of radical empiricism is
> a form of pluralist monism in which all things are both pure experience and
> “for themselves,” that is, are objects with their own independent psychical
> perspectives. In the end he endorsed “a general view of the world almost
> identical with Fechner’s” (ibid: 309-10). He saw in this new worldview “a
> great empirical movement towards a pluralistic panpsychic view of the
> universe” (ibid: 313).
> In the early part of the twentieth century, panpsychist philosophy
> continued to develop rapidly in England and the USA. The dominant
> philosophical system, the one most connected with panpsychism, was Process
> Philosophy. Its earliest advocates were Bergson and Whitehead.
> Bergson wrote Creative Evolution in 1907. His thesis—that matter is “the
> lowest degree of mind”—echoes Peirce. He added, following Schopenhauer, that
> “pure willing [is the] current that runs through matter, communicating life
> to it” (1907/1911: 206). But Bergson’s clearest elaboration came in Duration
> and Simultaneity (1922). Here he achieved a true process philosophy wherein
> all physical events contain a memory of the past. Given his earlier
> insistence that memory is essential to mind, one can see the conclusion that
> mind, or consciousness, is in all things:
> What we wish to establish is that we cannot speak of a reality that endures
> without inserting consciousness into it. … [I]t is impossible to imagine or
> conceive a connecting link between the before and after without an element
> of memory and, consequently, of consciousness. … We may perhaps feel averse
> to the use of the word “consciousness” if an anthropomorphic sense is
> attached to it. [But] there is no need to take one’s own memory and
> transport it, even attenuated, into the interior of the thing. … It is the
> opposite course we must follow. … [D]uration is essentially a continuation
> of what no longer exists into what does exist. This is real time, perceived
> and lived. … Duration therefore implies consciousness; and we place
> consciousness at the heart of things for the very reason that we credit them
> with a time that endures (1922/1965: 48-49).Whitehead’s panpsychism is
> relatively well known. It is based in his view of an “occasion of
> experience” as the ultimate pa
>  rticle of reality, and as possessing both a physical pole and a mental
> pole. If things are nothing but occasions, and occasions are in part mental,
> then all things have a mental dimension. In Modes of Thought (1938), in the
> chapter titled “Nature Alive,” he observed, “this [traditional] sharp
> division between mentality and nature has no ground in our fundamental
> observation. [...] I conclude that we should conceive mental operations as
> among the factors which make up the constitution of nature” (p. 156).
> Bertrand Russell ultimately came to a neutral monist view in which events
> were the primary reality, and mind and matter were both constructed from
> them. After some early, suggestive comments, he became increasingly
> supportive of panpsychism in the late 1920′s. Russell’s book An Outline of
> Philosophy(1927) directly addressed this. He wrote: “My own feeling is that
> there is not a sharp line, but a difference of degree [between mind and
> matter]; an oyster is less mental than a man, but not wholly un-mental” (p.
> 209). Part of the reason why we cannot draw a line, he says, is that an
> essential aspect of mind is memory, and a memory of sorts is displayed even
> by inanimate objects: “we cannot, on this ground [of memory], erect an
> absolute barrier between mind and matter. … [I]nanimate matter, to some
> slight extent, shows analogous behavior” (p. 306). In the summary he adds,
> The events that happen in our minds are part of the course of nature, and
> we do not know that the events which happen elsewhere are of a totally
> different kind. The physical world…is perhaps less rigidly determined by
> causal laws than it was thought to be; one might, more or less fancifully,
> attribute even to the atom a kind of limited free will (p. 311).Perhaps
> Russell’s clearest statement came in his Portraits from Memory (1956).
> Memory is “the most essential characteristic of mind, … using this word
> [memory] in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience
> on present reactions” (pp. 153-4). As before, memory applies to all physical
> objects and systems:
> This [memory] also can be illustrated in a lesser degree by the behavior of
> inorganic matter. A watercourse which at most times is dry gradually wears a
> channel down a gully at the times when it flows, and subsequent rains follow
> [a similar] course… You may say, if you like, that the river bed ‘remembers’
> previous occasions when it experienced cooling streams. … You would say
> [this] was a flight of fancy because you are of the opinion that rivers and
> river beds do not ‘think’. But if thinking consists of certain modifications
> of behavior owing to former occurrences, then we shall have to say that the
> river bed thinks, though its thinking is somewhat rudimentary (p. 155).In
> contrast to Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne articulated a clear and explicit
> form of process panpsychism. Beginning with his Beyond Humanism (1937), he
> laid out the unambiguous position that all true individuals possess a kind
> of psyche: “Molecules, atoms, and electrons all show more analogy of behavio
>  r to animals than do sticks and stones. The constitutions of inorganic
> masses may then after all belong on the scale of organic being…” (pp.
> 111-112). Elaborating on this notion over four decades, through such
> articles as “Panpsychism” (1950), “Physics and Psychics” (1977), and “The
> Rights of the Subhuman World” (1979), his panpsychism (or, “psychicalism”)
> is a clear and consistent theme. He combined the insights of Leibniz with
> Whitehead’s process view into a system which, he claimed, resolved many
> long-standing philosophical problems: most notably that it serves as a third
> way between dualism and materialism. Ultimately, panpsychism/psychicalism
> is, he says, the most viable ontology available to us—certainly preferable
> to an utterly unintelligible materialism: “the concept of ‘mere dead
> insentient matter’ is an appeal to invincible ignorance. At no time will
> this expression ever constitute knowledge” (1977: 95).
> Many other great thinkers of the twentieth century promoted panpsychist
> ideas, including:
> F. S. C. Schiller: “A stone, no doubt, does not apprehend us as spiritual
> beings… But does this amount to saying that it does not apprehend us at all,
> and takes no note whatever of our existence? Not at all; it is aware of us
> and affected by us on the plane on which its own existence is passed… It
> faithfully exercises all the physical functions, and influences us by so
> doing. It gravitates and resists pressure, and obstructs…vibrations, and so
> forth, and makes itself respected as such a body. And it treats us as if of
> a like nature with itself, on the level of its understanding…” (1907:
> 442).Samuel Alexander: “there is nothing dead, or senseless in the universe,
> [even] Space-Time itself being animated”(1920: 69).John Dewey : “[T]here is
> nothing which marks off the plant from the physico-chemical activity of
> inanimate bodies. The latter also are subject to conditions of disturbed
> inner equilibrium, which lead to activity in relation to surrounding things,
> and which te
>  rminate after a cycle of changes…” (1925: 253).Sir Arthur Eddington: “The
> stuff of the world is mind-stuff” (1928: 276).J. B. S. Haldane: “We do not
> find obvious evidence of life or mind in so-called inert matter…; but if the
> scientific point of view is correct, we shall ultimately find them, at least
> in rudimentary form, all through the universe” (1932: 13).J. Huxley: “[M]ind
> or something of the nature as mind must exist throughout the entire
> universe. This is, I believe, the truth” (1942: 141).Teilhard de Chardin:
> “there is necessarily a double aspect to [matter’s] structure…
> [C]o-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to things.” “[W]e are
> logically forced to assume the existence in rudimentary form…of some sort of
> psyche in every corpuscle, even in those (the mega-molecules and below)
> whose complexity is of such a low or modest order as to render it (the
> psyche) imperceptible…” (1959: 56, 301).C. H. Waddington: “[S]omething must
> go on in the si
>  mplest inanimate things which can be described in the same language as
> would be used to describe our self-awareness” (1961: 121).Gregory Bateson:
> “The elementary cybernetic system with its messages in circuit is, in fact,
> the simplest unit of mind; … More complicated systems are perhaps more
> worthy to be called mental systems, but essentially this is what we are
> talking about. … We get a picture, then, of mind as synonymous with
> cybernetic system… [W]e know that within Mind in the widest sense there will
> be a hierarchy of subsystems, any one of which we can call an individual
> mind” (1972: 459-60).Freeman Dyson: “The laws [of physics] leave a place for
> mind in the description of every molecule… In other words, mind is already
> inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ
> only in degree and not in kind…” (1979: 249).David Bohm: “That which we
> experience as mind…will in a natural way ultimately reach the level of the
> wavefunction and of
>  the ‘dance’ of the particles. There is no unbridgeable gap or barrier
> between any of these levels. … It is implied that, in some sense, a
> rudimentary consciousness is present even at the level of particle physics”
> (1986: 131).Panpsychism enters the 21st century with vigor and diversity of
> thought. A number of recent works have focused attention on it. If we look
> back to the year 1996 we find two books that contributed to a resurrection
> of sorts. First, Chalmers’ The Conscious Mind lays out a naturalistic
> dualism theory of mind in which he suggests (with an apparent diffidence)
> that mind can be associated with ubiquitous information states—following
> Bateson and Bohm, though without citing their panpsychist views. His
> relatively detailed discussion of panpsychism sparked a resurgence of
> discussion on the matter, and contributed to a wider interest. Also, Abram’s
> Spell of the Sensuous argued from a phenomenological basis for a return to
> an animistic worldview, though hi
>  s work was more poetic essay than detailed philosophical inquiry. In 1998
> process philosopher David Ray Griffin published Unsnarling the World-Knot, a
> major milestone in panpsychist philosophy. Griffin supplies a detailed and
> scholarly assessment of the subject, though with a strong focus on the
> process view, and with only a cursory historical study.
> Into the present century, Christian DeQuincey’s Radical Nature (2002)
> offers another process perspective, and a more satisfying review of the
> historical aspect. In 2003 there were two more books dedicated to
> panpsychism: David Clarke’s Panpsychism and the Religious Attitude, and
> Freya Mathews’ For Love of Matter. Clarke again takes the process view,
> underscoring the dominance of this philosophical perspective on the
> discussion. Mathews moves into new territory; drawing inspiration from
> Schopenhauer, she crafts a truly metaphysical philosophy in which humans are
> sensitive participants in an animate cosmos. Gregg Rosenberg released a
> nominally panpsychist approach to mind in 2004, with his book A Place for
> Consciousness. In 2005, Skrbina published the first-ever comprehensive study
> of the subject, Panpsychism in the West. Most recently, Galen Strawson has
> presented a forceful argument for panpsychism based on the inexplicability
> of emergence of mind (see Section 4).
> Thus, at present we can discern at least six active lines of inquiry into
> panpsychism:
> the Process Philosophy view, as conceived by Bergson and Whitehead, and
> developed by Hartshorne, Griffin, DeQuincey, and Clarke;the Quantum Physics
> approach, as developed by Bohm, Hameroff, and others;the Information Theory
> approach, arising from the work of Bateson, Wheeler (1994), Bohm, and
> Chalmers;the Part-Whole Hierarchy, as envisioned by Cardano and elaborated
> by Koestler (1967) and Wilber (1995);the Nonlinear Dynamics approach, as
> inspired by Peirce (1892) and further articulated by Skrbina (1994, 2001);
> andStrawson’s (2006) “real physicalism” (see Section 4).These areas all
> offer significant opportunity for development and articulation. They hold
> out the hope of resolving otherwise intractable problems of emergentism and
> mechanism, especially when so many conventional approaches have reached a
> dead end. As Nagel, Searle, and others have noted, the problems of mind and
> consciousness are so difficult that “drastic actions” are warranted—perhaps
> even as drastic as
>  panpsychism.
> Panpsychism, with its long list of advocates and sympathizers, is a robust
> and respectable approach to mind. It offers a naturalistic escape from
> Cartesian dualism and Christian theology. And, by undermining the
> mechanistic worldview, it promises to resolve not only long-standing
> philosophical problems but persistent social and ecological problems as
> well. Many great thinkers, from Empedocles and Epicurus to Campanella and
> LaMettrie, Fechner and James to Gregory Bateson, have recognized the
> potential for the panpsychist view to fundamentally alter, for the better,
> our outlook on the world. An animated worldview is not only philosophically
> rigorous, but it can have far-reaching and unanticipated effects.
>
>
>
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