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Panpsychism: The cosmic mind debuts at YouTube

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From Robert Wright and Galen Strawson at Meaning of Life TV:

0:30 Why scientific materialism is harder to define than you think

14:42 Galen explains panpsychism

27:36 What does “mind is all there is to reality” mean?

32:48 Is human consciousness epiphenomenal?

40:35 Do physical laws come from somewhere?

44:35 Is it like something to be a rock? (And is Galen saying it is?)

50:57 Galen: Discussion of the mind-body problem was better 100 years ago

The reader who sent this link suggests that panpsychism may be “better than pure materialism.”

But one wants to ask, better in what sense? If everything is conscious, nothing is. So the primary materialist (naturalist) assertion, that your consciousness (and his) is an illusion, is correct. We know no more than rocks do. And once we want to qualify that assertion, we encounter endless difficulties with panpsychism, mostly based on conflict with evidence.

That’s the trouble with qualification, vs. mere grand assertion; one must deal with evidence. For example, humans have the kind of consciousness that contemplates panpsychism but turtles and rocks do not.

Bright Idea See also: At Aeon: Fine-tuning is easy to explain: The universe itself is conscious, and somewhat like a human Goff: “However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.” Indeed. If we keep going in this direction, we will run into Zeus. The only remaining mystery is why our Stone Age ancestors gave up on him after a while.

At Quartz: Materialists are converting to panpsychism

Latest consciousness theory: Rocks have minds

The universe may be conscious?

Evading hard problem of human consciousness: Consciousness is in everything!

The illusion of consciousness sees through itself.

And the naturalist’s biggest problem, to hear him tell it, is the persistence of stubborn doubt about naturalism.

Comments
If things need not be well adapted to serve a purpose, then why can't a rock have a mind? Or, to reformulate, what else would prevent rocks from having a mind other than not being well adapted for the purpose of having one? It seems to me that, at best, you can say, "rocks could have minds, but they're just not supposed to." But that's the equivalent to saying "Zeus rules" here, as well.critical rationalist
February 25, 2018
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