The Philosurfer

Panpsychism: Does everything have a mind?

by Leave a Comment

Panpsychism is the view that "everything has a mind." In this video, I look at arguments for and against this view

NOTES

  • panpsychism- “everything has a mind”
    • Not that everything can think, but everything has some level of consciousness
    • Not necessarily that every single object has consciousness, but at least the building blocks
  • A1: Problem of Psychophysical Emergence
  • A2: The Intrinsic Nature Argument
    1. Physical objects are known by their extrinsic nature
    2. This doesn't tell us about the intrinsic nature of these objects
    3. Science can only tell us about the extrinsic nature of physical objects
    4. So, science is an incomplete picture of the world
    5. Panpsychist has a proposal: the intrinsic nature of matter is, at least in part, consciousness
  • A3: “simplicity argument” in favor of panpsychism
    • The intrinsic nature of at least some matter is consciousness-involving: namely the matter of brains 
    • This is perhaps our only real clue as to the intrinsic nature of matter in general
    • O1: hasty generalization
  • O1: Deeply counterintuitive
  • O2: The Combination Problem
    • James: Very difficult to make sense of: “little” conscious subjects of experience with their micro-experiences coming together to form a “big” conscious subject with its own experiences
      • Imagine there are a billion conscious particles
      • Push them all together into a brain shape
      • A human consciousness arises
      • That human consciousness would not be a case of additive emergence like the quiet voices making a loud sound
      • It would just be an entirely new consciousness
      • You'd now have 1 billion and 1 consciousnesses
      • In general, a mind isn't something you add up to
    • The Subject-Summing Problem
      • 1. Each subject has a viewpoint that excludes the viewpoints of all other subjects
      • 2. If my point of view and your point of view were to be combined into an “uber-mind”, then that uber-mind would have to have both your experiences to the exclusion of all other experiences and my experiences to the exclusion of all other experiences
      • 3. This seems flatly contradictory
      • Adapted zombie argument
        1. Assume: conceivability = possibility
        2. We can conceive of a human with all its parts being conscious, yet the human not conscious itself
        3. So, it's possible for the parts to be conscious without the self being conscious
        4. If the parts can be conscious without giving rise to the self being conscious, then something else must be causing the self to be conscious
        5. So, panpsychism is false

Further Reading

Does God exist? The Argument from Change

by Leave a Comment

In this video, I explore the argument for God's existence from the phenomenon of change.

NOTES

  1. Change is real
  2. Change is the actualization of a potential

A1: Parmenides' Paradox

  1. A thing cannot actualize itself
  1. There can't be an infinite series of actualizers
  1. So, a purely actual actualizer must exist
  2. This thing of pure actuality we call God

Further Reading

Is change impossible? Parmenides’ Paradox

by 1 Comment

Parmenides posed a paradox that purported to show change is impossible. How can this be since we see change everywhere?

NOTES

Parmenides' Paradox of Change

  1. Something can't come from nothing
  2. Change is the bringing about of something from nothing
  3. So, change is impossible
    • O1: empirical observation
      • R1: it's an illusion
        • O1: the illusion is really changing, so some change must be real
    • O2: the argument attempt to *change* your mind
    • O3: change as the actualization of a potential
      • Change is the actualization of a potential
      • So, something is not coming from nothing

Further Reading

Epiphenomenalism: Is our mind a byproduct of our brain?

by Leave a Comment

Epiphenomenalism is a version of property dualism that claims the mind is a byproduct of the brain that is causally inert. In this video, I discuss what that means and some objections to it.

NOTES

Our physical properties generate our mental properties

Emergent mental phenomena are causally inert

O1: counterintuitive

O2: problem of psychophysical emergence

O3: arguments for substance dualism over property dualism

Further Reading

What is dualism?

by Leave a Comment

In this video, I explain what dualism is, the difference between property and substance dualism, the difference between different kinds of substance dualisms (including Cartesian dualism), and motivations for and against being a dualist.

NOTES

Motivations for and against

  • A1: the mind is the center of personhood, which is not material
    • S1: material body constantly changes, person remains the same
    • S2: personhood isn't quantifiable like matter
  • A2: thinking seems prima facie to be immaterial
    • R1: the brain has a causal effect on thinking
      • O1: damaged equipment
  • A3: sense of transcendence
  • A4: religious
  • O1: makes minds sound like ghosts in a shell
  • O2: doesn’t neuroscience explain everything going on in thinking?
  • O3: mind sounds like soul, and soul is religion
  • O4: scientism

Further Reading

Agency Arguments: Do reasoning and moral choice prove you have a nonphysical mind?

by Leave a Comment

Rational agency is what we call our reasoning ability, and it seems to be different from mimicry, but the two aren't physically different. This seems to show we are non-physical. Moral agency is our faculty for deliberating between goods. Again, this seems physically identical to mimicry, so its existence seems to show we are non-physical.

The Intentionality Argument

by Leave a Comment

Our thoughts are about things, a property we call intentionality. Material objects do not exhibit intentionality. In this video, I consider the possibility that this shows our minds are immaterial.

NOTES

THE INTENTIONALITY ARGUMENT

  1. Thoughts have intentionality
  2. Material things don't have intentionality
  3. So, thoughts are not material things
  • O1: causal view of intentionality
    • R1: non-existent causes (e.g., unicorn)
      • O1: these are just existent causes mixed together (e.g., unicorn = horn + horse)
        • R1: the concept may be caused by existent causes, but the content of the thought isn't of those existent causes
    • R2: different causes, same content
    • R3: same cause, different content
    • R4: reducing intentionality to an object ipso facto loses the 'aboutness' necessary for intentionality
  • O2 (Dennett): intentionality has no explanatory power so we shouldn't posit it
    • R1: it isn't something posited to explain, but something observed and in need of explaining