MODES OF IPAG IGNORANCE PSSN AND GOODNESS

 

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1.) Materialism, the underlying basis of science, is wrong.

2.) Why? Because materialism and the science that uses it rely on quantitative analyses, and if a phenomenon in the Universe can’t be expressed quantitatively, but is still a real phenomenon, then it disproves materialism. (I use the term “naturalism” instead of materialism, as some of the realities of the cosmos, like gravity, aren’t “material” but are nevertheless real phenomena.)

3.) Consciousness is one such phenomenon. No matter how much scientists labor at understanding consciousness—and by that term Goff means “qualia”: the subjective experience of seeing the color orange or tasting salt—no materialistic (scientific) theory will ever explain how that sensation feels. It may provide neurological “correlations” of such experiences, but understanding why the color orange looks as it does, and other subjective experiences, will always elude quantitative explanation. Therefore materialism is false, and it’s false because it can’t explain how we come to “feel.”

4.) Further falsification of materialism comes from its failure to tell us what the “intrinsic nature of matter” really is. All we can do with something like electrons, avers Goff, is to measure how they behave and how they interact with other particles. But we can’t really express what their “intrinsic nature” is. (I have to say that this “intrinsic nature” stuff mystifies me, especially when Goff defines the consciousness of electrons; see below.)

5.) Goff isn’t a dualist, so he doesn’t think that there is “consciousness stuff” separate from matter. Therefore he has a “scientific” theory (see the subtitle of his book) for how we get consciousness. It is panpsychism. Panpsychism isn’t new (Goff mentions Eddington’s version), but Goff (also citing his ex-advisor Galen Strawson) says that there’s a resurgence of interest and acceptance of panpsychism due to his efforts and those of Strawson.

6.) Panpsychism arises because, Goff concludes, we can’t derive a materialistic explanation of consciousness, yet it exists, so it must somehow be inherent in the brain in a way that has eluded us.

7.) Why is it inherent in the brain? Because says Goff—and this is the crux of panpsychism—every bit of matter in the Universe is conscious, and since brains are built of particles, the consciousness is also inherent in the brain. That’s where consciousness comes from—its conscious constituent particles.

8.) So what is the nature of consciousness in particles like electrons or atoms? Goff isn’t clear, but does say they have a rudimentary form of consciousness that differs from the “higher” self-reflective form of consciousness in humans. What form does particle consciousness take? Goff says that, for electrons, for example, it consists of stuff like their spin, their charge, and their mass. (Again I am mystified, as those properties are again detected by quantitative materialistic analysis, the so-called “correlations”. Why they constitute “consciousness” remains for me a mystery, and seems like a semantic issue.) Asserting that particles are conscious, says Goff, finally solves the vexing problem of what the “intrinsic nature” of matter is. It is consciousness. 

9.) Finally, when you get a brain like ours that is built of many semi-conscious particles, somehow you get a massive increase in consciousness, so now the particles can have experiences, see red, and reflect on their experiences. How this happens is what philosophers call the “combination” problem, and so far I have not seen a solution, though I still have about 1/4 of Goff’s book to read.

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Very roughly, the idea is that physics only tells us about the causal structure of the physical world – what things do – and leaves us completely in the dark about the intrinsic nature of matter that realizes that structure. The Russellian panpsychism holds that consciousness is the intrinsic nature of matter. Why believe this? Well, we know that consciousness exists, and we have to fit it in to our theory of reality somehow. Russellian monism offers us a way of doing this, and I’ve argued at length that it avoids the deep difficulties I believe face the more conventional options of materialism and dualism.

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Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.  

© Walter Anderson

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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. 

© Samuel Smile

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From wonder into wonder existence opens.  

© Lao Tzu

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One must never be either content with, or impatient with, oneself.

–SAMUEL JOHNSON A