Panpsychism - Why not a trillion Mini-Mes?

Philosopher Christian De Quincey offers an interesting theory behind "the binding problem" posited by William James. "“How can many consciousnesses be at the same time one consciousness?”

Quote :

The Binding Problem

In panpsychism, the key slogan or bumper sticker is "consciousness all the way down." It means that some degree of sentience or consciousness is present at all levels of the physical world— from animals, such as humans and whales, all the way down to worms, single cells, and below to their molecules and atoms, etc. This means that a complex organism like a human being possess countless trillions of "little consciousnesses." Yet we normally experience ourselves as just a single, unified consciousness. How does that happen? And if it happens in humans and other animals, why wouldn't the atoms and molecules of a computer, a car, a beer can, or a rock have their own consciousness?

The difference between a rock and a rat (or a human and a hat) has to do with the fact that animals are organisms and their constituent elements (atoms, molecules, and cells) are organized in a hierarchy. Each level of the hierarchy (from quanta to atoms to molecules to cells to whole organism) transcends and includes the levels below it. Thus many atoms make up a single molecule, and many molecules combine to form a single cell, and multiple cells form a living organism. The many "consciousnesses" of the preceding levels transcend, include, and unify, so that at each level there is a "dominant monad" of consciousness. The consciousness of each human, for example, is the dominant monad of all the lower-level consciousnesses that exist in all the parts of the human organism. But how? How do the little consciousnesses combine into one mind? Why “me” and not a gazillion mini mes?

The full answer to this question requires a technical explanation based on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (see below and Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter). However, you can get a sense of how it happens by realizing that the elements or constituents of organisms are related to each other in two basic ways—through external (physical) relations and internal (nonphysical) relations. The external relations are studied in physics, and involve the four forces of electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear, and gravity. These forces bind physical components together. But the parts of our bodies (cells, molecules, atoms, etc.) are not just connected through physical mechanisms. Every sentient being (whether atom, molecule, or cell) also connects through sharing experiences and meaning—through consciousness.

All the experiences and meaning in a collection of molecules that make up a cell are available to that cell to also experience; and in the same way, the experiences of a cell are available to its host organism (e.g., when you stub you toe the cells in your toe experience pain, and that experience is available to you, the dominant organism—unless some anesthetic is involved).

The dominant monad of consciousness in the higher-level organism literally feels the experiences of all its constituents. It feels their consciousness as part and parcel of its own dominant consciousness. This explains why, for instance, when the cells of your stomach or nervous system experience hunger, you (the dominant monad) experience their hunger as your hunger. Or when the cells of your eyes experience specific colors and shapes, those experiences are unified into a single moment of your vision.

http://www.christiandequincey.com/Downloads/Articles/files/The%20Binding%20Problem.pdf

I completely disagree with his assessment. In fact, I think it is just more of the same old Dualism dressed up in different language. The Binding Problem is only a problem when you refuse to accept that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of physiological processes. He completely side-steps basic neuroscience and biology but casually labels us a "dominant monad.". I do not particularly like his misleading extrapolation here.

I disagree. The author uses Process Philosophy as the framework for his panpsychism hypothesis.

This is a pretty good explanation of why Process Philosophy is not dualistic in nature and why consciousness is more than just an epiphenomenon of physiological processes.

Quote :

Whitehead and the Immanent Unity of Mind and Nature

For Whitehead, one of the major problems that has "poisoned" much if not all of modem philosophy subsequent to Descartes is this dualistic way in which it treats of the relation between mind and nature (or nature and life as he sometimes phrases it). Modern philosophy has separated mind from nature in such a radical and fundamental sense that philosophy subsequent to and including the modern era has been unable to make sense of the relation between the two. Attempts to restore this division have resulted in a one-sided representation of their relation. "Even when the coordinate existence of the two types of actualities is abandoned, there is no proper fusion of the two in modern schools of thought. For some, nature is mere appearance and mind is the sole reality. For others, physical nature is the sole reality and mind is an epiphenomenon". Such a dualist approach ultimately reduces nature to nothing more than some blind, lifeless mechanism with mind remaining alienated and incomplete.

Given this, then, one of the foremost tasks of philosophy is to restore the unity of mind and nature in a way which makes equal sense of both. To do this, says Whitehead, we must begin to recognize the reciprocal relation which exists between the two; "we require that the deficiencies in our concept of physical nature should be supplied by its fusion with life. And we require that, on the other hand, that the notion of life should involve the notion of physical nature" (MT 150). Phrased in terms of our present discussion this means that our understanding of mind must include its existence as conditioned by nature, that is, as conditioned by the elements of finitude, contingency, chance, and decay. It also means that our understanding of nature should be sufficient to account for mind, that is, that nature must itself contain conditions which are capable of giving rise to the rational unity which is characteristic of mental functioning.

Like Nietzsche, then, Whitehead believes that mind (or reason) has its origins in the natural world. It arose out of nature and is still evolving within nature. But unlike Nietzsche, Whitehead also believes that mind is also present in nature as forming part of its essential character. Because he sees mind in nature as well as nature in mind, Whitehead is able to avoid the slide into the irrational, chaotic world of indiscriminate power relations which we find in Nietzsche. Whitehead adopts a more orderly, systematic view of nature, one whose structures are capable of giving rise to a unified, rational mind, while at the same time preserving the open-ended, fluid character of the natural world which is so prominent in our experience and which Nietzsche so rightly embraced...

...Whitehead sees the unity which underlies all things as a unity of process, that is, as a temporally continuous whole which is self-unfolding, open-ended, and essentially incomplete. Unlike Nietzsche, however, White-head’s unity of process is perhaps best characterized as holistic in nature, meaning thereby that every part is present in the whole and the whole in every part (present in the sense of the essential interconnectedness of all things). Such a holistic view is justified, claims Whitehead, first because this sharp division between mentality and nature has no ground in our fundamental observation. We find ourselves living within nature. Secondly, I conclude that we should conceive mental operations as among the factors

which make up the constitution of nature. Thirdly, that we should reject the notion of idle wheels in the process of nature. . . Fourthly, that we have now the task of defining natural facts, so as to understand how mental occurrences are operative in conditioning the subsequent course of nature. (MT 156)

Rather than begin by separating nature and mind in the modern dualistic sense, Whitehead believes that mind and nature are better understood by seeing them as participants in a more immanent relation, one which places us "in the world and the world in us."...

More here...
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2840

I don't disagree with Whitehead - his language, while outdated, is open-ended enough to be wedged into the scope of modern neuroscience, but I do disagree with Christian De Quincey in the OP. Philosophers keep positing the existence of special "mind stuff" as this mysterious root of consciousness, but science keeps showing us that those ideas are simply not true.

Uriah wrote:

I don't disagree with Whitehead - his language, while outdated, is open-ended enough to be wedged into the scope of modern neuroscience, but I do disagree with Christian De Quincey in the OP. Philosophers keep positing the existence of special "mind stuff" as this mysterious root of consciousness, but science keeps showing us that those ideas are simply not true.

I don't know that De Quincy is really talking about mind as existing as a "special kind of stuff". I think he views it as an integral aspect of existence.

Asserting that consciousness is a thing that exists in and of itself is doing just that. It's Dualism. The flaw of panpsychism is that it states that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe, like mass, spin, and charge. However, there is absolutely no evidence to support this idea, and in fact there is a great deal of evidence to suggest otherwise. Consciousness isn't what brains are, it's what brain do. It is an emergent epiphenomenon of neural physiology, and as such does not exist in the same sense of the word that rocks, or electrons, do.

I used to be enthralled by the idea of panpsychism, because it is highly intuitive, and there is a romantic part inside us all that wants to believe, I think, that consciousness is somehow fundamentally integral to the existence of the universe. Even if it isn't why the universe exists, it is at least foundational and overarching. However, the more I read on the subject, the more I realized that the neuroscientists had it right. The majority of philosophers of Mind are chasing ghosts.

Well we are discussing metaphysics here which I don't need to tell you is by definition outside of the realm of physics. There's no way of directly measuring in-formation, consciousness, or proto-consciousness so it's not surprising that neuroscientists who limit themselves to the realm of cold empiricism might (by an act of faith) view it as an epiphenomenon rather than a fundamental aspect of reality. (They measure physiological correlates not consciousness directly.)

It personally makes more sense to me that human consciousness arises in a hierarchical manner much in the way that "material things" arise hierarchically. Of course separating consciousness and matter is a misleading convention of our dualist language and it gives the impression that they are fundamentally separate "things".

I can't think of any other way of describing it other than the analogy that information and energy/matter are like yin and yang, they are the basic building blocks of all systems. They compliment and help to define one another as well as the holon that they "are a part of".

Consciousness is measurable - Anesthesiologists do it everyday.

What is not measurable is the subjective, qualitative conscious state each individual experiences, however, we should not mistake that basic subjectivity as proof that consciousness is itself some sort of ethereal, mystical, force.

In fact, there quite a few plausible scientific theories which account for how qualitative conscious states emerge from the architecture of our neural physiology.

However, I agree with you that consciousness is, in some way, information.

Aaron wrote:

I can't think of any other way of describing it other than the analogy that information and energy/matter are like yin and yang, they are the basic building blocks of all systems. They compliment and help to define one another as well as the holon that they "are a part of".

I like that definition.

In reference to the original post, I have been very interested in epigenetics and the possibilities that current research is uncovering.

The idea that an event in my great-grandmother's life before my mother's conception could have an influence on my genetic makeup and perhaps in my perception of my existence, fascinates me.

Do we carry switch coding within us from our early biological existence? I have always believed that we do. In this respect, the hierarchy idea makes perfect sense to me. And yes, I fully believe in a collective unconscious. I believe all living things are made up of the same ingredients. It's all just distributed differently. I do also believe there is a central 'code' that runs through everything. I believe it is this 'code' that connects all things and generates response, creation, and regeneration.

Uriah wrote:

Asserting that consciousness is a thing that exists in and of itself is doing just that. It's Dualism. The flaw of panpsychism is that it states that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe, like mass, spin, and charge. However, there is absolutely no evidence to support this idea, and in fact there is a great deal of evidence to suggest otherwise. Consciousness isn't what brains are, it's what brain do. It is an emergent epiphenomenon of neural physiology, and as such does not exist in the same sense of the word that rocks, or electrons, do.

I'm only superficially familiar with Panpsychism and Process Philosophy, but based on what little I know, they seem to be forerunners of the Enformationism concept. According to that thesis Consciousness is not a static thing or material substance that can be parceled-out, but a dynamic subroutine within the overall evolutionary process. Unlike solid objects, fluent ideas can be in two different minds at the same time.

As you said, Consciousness seems to be an emergent metaphysical "Function" of the physical Brain---it's what brains do. As such, it is dependent on the material substrate for its immaterial existence (i.e. epiphenomenal & non-dual). Just as the function "Transportation" depends on a physical transporter, Mind cannot function apart from an operational Brain.*

The common New Age connotations of Consciousness view it as a sort of semi-physical force (chi, prana, spirit) similar to electromagnetism and gravity, but somehow not subject to mundane physical laws. That category confusion is why I prefer to use the more technical term "Information" in my discussions of metaphysics.

In some ways, the hypothetical fundamental force "En-Form-Action" may seem even more miraculous than "chi" : It's not only the Will of God, but also the Energy, Matter, and Laws of the physical universe. But in my formulation, nothing in this world---including Consciousness---is supernatural. So when my Body/Brain dies, my Mind , Consciousness, Soul (qualities, properties, functions) cease to exist as consistent, ongoing patterns of information.

The key distinction from earlier vital force theories is that we now have a scientific theory to help us understand metaphysics, not as an isolated mystical realm, but in the same context with physics. Mechanical Information can be quantified in terms of thermodynamic Entropy. But currently, Life, Mind, & Consciousness can only be crudely measured as off-or-on, live-or-dead, conscious-or-unconscious.


* Hence, the Enformationism concept of Mind is not currently compatible with ancient notions of Ghosts, Reincarnation, Psychic Phenomena, and Out-of-body Excursions. Remains to be seen if those wandering souls can be reconciled with our evolving understanding of the physical world.


PS---In Quantum Mechanics subatomic properties such as mass, spin, and charge are treated in some cases as immaterial mathematical "operators", rather than things in themselves. In that sense, they consist of nothing more substantial than information about something.



<< In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that all matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view. >>
I'm not sure how Panpsychics envision that "unified center" of consciousness, but in my thesis it's G*D's point-of-view.

All in all I agree with the basic idea, it was only De Quincey's argument that Aaron posted originally - specifically his flawed extrapolation on the Binding Problem - that I disagreed with. The Binding Problem, as put forth by William James (and debated by philosophers of mind) is a question of how our conscious mind assimilates disparate sensory data into a "unified conscious field." De Quincey seems to misunderstand the basic psychological question of the Binding Problem, nor does he address the cognitive processes at all, and instead side steps psychology en toto by asserting that each sense is itself a "little consciousness" that is itself made up of even smaller consciousness, "all the way down." I disagree with his assessment, and in fact, I think that his entire argument is muddled and fallacious.

I've certainly no issue with Whitehead's Process Philosophy from either an analytical, or metaphysical perspective. At some point these basic qualitative questions will have to be answered by empirical science. I do, however, favor the more material theories of consciousness because purely because fit better into the available data than do most of the metaphysical perspectives on consciousness. What we need, I think, is a new metaphysics that incorporates modern scientific understanding - which, if I'm not wring, is something you've always endeavored to do with Enformationism.

Uriah wrote:

All in all I agree with the basic idea, it was only De Quincey's argument that Aaron posted originally - specifically his flawed extrapolation on the Binding Problem - that I disagreed with.

I am hoping that the Enformationism concept---or something like it---will ultimately unravel the Binding Problem. In Descartes' dualistic conception of the Mind/Body inter-relationship, he never could explain how those separate realms could communicate across the gulf between spirit and matter.

Yet if Soul/Self/Spirit and Mind and Consciousness are all emergent qualities of an information-based physical system, then they should all "speak" the same "language". And the common language may turn out to be the same 1s and 0s that silicon-based computers process. In that case, the logical syntax is universal, so there is no actual language gap to bridge. One kind of thing becomes another kind by a phase transition process of transformation, like water into ice. The syntax remains the same, but the semantics can adapt to new contexts.

However, if the universe is actually a quantum computer---as Seth Lloyd proposes---then the "yes-or-no" dualistic language of digital machines, would instead be a holistic analog processor of information with millions of intermediate "maybes". A Quantum Computer (in superposition) can access the whole range of possible answers between zero to unity, nothing to everything. Which makes the computing power almost infinite---almost like the Mind of G*D.


Wiki: Binding Problem << how the unity of conscious perception is brought about by the distributed activities of the central nervous system. >> Some interesting theories of how the brain creates order out of chaos propose that multiple brain modules are like voters clamoring to have their biased memes accepted as the official perspective. Fortunately the neural network functions like a democratic system, so that only the most important issues ever get into consciousness, where they can be either passed or vetoed by a conscious executive decision (freewill). In some of those scenarios, the voting is done, not by casting ballots, but by harmonizing the various frequencies of neural signals : music of the mind.

I would submit that there is only consciousness, there is no such thing as a soul or spirit - at least not in classical sense of the idea. There is only the existent consciousness, once the brain dies (or is sufficiently damaged) the consciousness simply goes away - ceases to be.

In the words of V. Ramachandran, “It’s only when you start thinking that you are some aloof thing which is in charge of everything, that you become scared of dying, because you say, ‘Oh my God, when I’m dead, I’m not around anymore.’ But if you think you’re part of the ebb and flow of the cosmos, and there’s no separate little soul, inspecting the world, that’s going to be extinguished – then it’s ennobling. You’re part of the grand scheme of things.”

Uriah wrote:

I would submit that there is only consciousness, there is no such thing as a soul or spirit - at least not in classical sense of the idea.

I agree. That's why, in the Enformationism thesis, I try to update the traditional connotations of "Soul" and "Spirit" to mean essentially the same as "Self" & "Life".

The old prejudicial terms imply Dualism and Immortality, while the newer neutral words can be interpreted as holistic emergent properties of ordinary physical processes. The phenomenon that used to be called the "Soul" is, in neuroscience terms, simply the mental self-image created by the brain to represent the person, mind & body, in its interactions with the mental model of the "real" world. By analogy, the Soul/Self-concept is like your avatar in a virtual reality video game. The Soul is the invisible Persona exhibited in the behavior of the graphical avatar.

Of course, such a mundane definition of the formerly sublime entities will not be easy for some people to accept. Especially, those who don't know or care about the detailed & documented rational scientific description of the world. So for those folks I won't even try to disabuse them of their comforting notion of being immune to the horrors of death and dissolution. Who knows, the spiritualists may be right, and the materialists wrong. My "Self" thinks it's a little of both.

But there is still a ray of hope for life after death : the epiphenomenal data patterns that we interpret as Mind & Self are potentially eternal, in the sense that the Enformer could re-form them at any time, if S/he so "desired". Unfortunately, I have not been informed of G*D's intentions beyond the limits of this temporal world. So, we'll just have to wait and see.

For my part, I'd prefer to act as-if this "real" life is one & done, and be pleasantly surprised in the hereafter, than to hope in vain for something that has not been promised. Others may not share that pragmatic attitude.

Uriah wrote:

I would submit that there is only consciousness, there is no such thing as a soul or spirit - at least not in classical sense of the idea. There is only the existent consciousness, once the brain dies (or is sufficiently damaged) the consciousness simply goes away - ceases to be.

I agree....


BTW, I still think you have De Quincey wrong...

Quote :

(Panpsychism) ...claims that ultimate reality is both physical and non-physical (it consists of objective matter and subjective mind) and that mind and matter are inseparable. Mind and matter always go together — all the way down.

Although acknowledging the existence of two ontological types (physical matter/energy and non-physical mind/consciousness), panpsychism differs from ontological dualism because it denies that mind and matter are separate or separable.

In fact, of the four major world views, panpsychism alone qualifies as a form of nondual dualism or a dual-aspect monism. Here, ultimate reality consists of a single, inseparable, nature — sentient energy. However, this single ultimate has a dual-aspect interior subjectivity and external objectivity.

In short, the Creative Ultimate consists of intrinsically sentient energy. Matter itself tingles with the spark of spirit. According to this world view, consciousness is "the intrinsic or innate ability of matter/energy to feel, know, and purposefully direct itself."

http://www.christiandequincey.com/Home/About/Teacher/Mind-Body%20World%20Views.html

I read his entire paper, not once did he address the cognitive processes that the Binding Problem refers to. Instead he simply seems to assume that consciousness is perception. He is wrong.

When I was looking up De Quincey's info last night I saw that he was one of the original members of the UofA Center for Consciousness Studies. I asked a contact over there about him and apparently he left when they decided to do actual science instead of remaining locked in 100 year old metaphysics.

Philosophers and Academics gossip like little old ladies.

Hi Aaron: Thanks for posting the link(s). In your first excerpt -- I thought this statement was clearly wrong:

"The dominant monad of consciousness in the higher-level organism literally feels the experiences of all its constituents."

My high level introspection is ignorant of most of what's happening in my brain/body system.

Later in the piece, DeQuincey gets into the fuller Whiteheadian account of what’s going on – with the higher level subject unifying itself from its prehension of the lower level parts (and selecting only a portion of what’s there to work with I guess). I don’t think the binding problem is solved by Whitehead and his explicators – it’s just a speculation regarding the sort of thing which might be happening. I do think science will eventually get at the binding problem in a way consistent with a panexperientialist metaphysics.

Maybe I'm just projecting my own biases on De Quincey's work but a lot of what he writes makes a lot of sense to me.

Lots of philosophers are right about lots of things and wrong on a few specifics. Kant, for example, was incredibly right about the importance of Reason in relationship to the Self, but his Ethics is muddled. Yet even his Ethics starts off in the right direction and before veering over into Christian dogmatism. The great Greeks thought slavery and patrism was reasonable defensible. Decartes is probably the best example. Here's a guy who was probably one of the smartest humans ever to live, ever. His philosophical contributions aside he literally reinvented Mathematics, but he also invented Dualism - hey, nobody's perfect.

I could go on. I can't think of any philosopher who is right about everything all the time. Christian De Quincey is certainly no different. There are many philosophers who defend panpsychism, for a variety of reasons, and that's just fine. It's all part of the dialog. I'm sure that De Quincey were here he'd be able to respond to my criticism. He's a smart guy.