Cool post. :) I’m not sure if I understand the argument correctly, but what would you say to someone who cites the “fallacy of division”? For example, even though recurrent processes are made of feedforward ones, that doesn’t mean the purported consciousness of the recurrent processes also applies to the feedforward parts. My guess is that you’d reply that wholes can sometimes be different from the sum of their parts, but in these cases, there’s no reason to think there’s a discontinuity anywhere, i.e., no reason to think there’s a difference in kind rather than degree as the parts are arranged.
Consider a table made of five pieces of wood: four legs and a top. Suppose we create the table just by stacking the top on the four legs, without any nails or glue, to keep things simple. Is the difference between the table versus an individual piece of wood a difference in degree or kind? I’m personally not sure, but I think many people would call it a difference in kind.
I think an alternate route to panpsychism is to argue that the electron has not just information integration but also the other properties you mentioned. It has “recurrent processing” because it can influence something else in its environment (say, a neighboring electron), which can then influence the original electron. We can get higher-order levels by looking at one electron influencing another, which influences another, and so on. The thing about Y predicting X would apply to electrons as well as neurons.
The table analogy to this argument is to note that an individual piece of wood has many of the same properties as a table: you can put things on it, eat food from it, move it around your house as furniture, knock on it to make noise, etc.
I’m not sure if I understand the argument correctly, but what would you say to someone who cites the “fallacy of division”? For example, even though recurrent processes are made of feedforward ones, that doesn’t mean the purported consciousness of the recurrent processes also applies to the feedforward parts. My guess is that you’d reply that wholes can sometimes be different from the sum of their parts, but in these cases, there’s no reason to think there’s a discontinuity anywhere, i.e., no reason to think there’s a difference in kind rather than degree as the parts are arranged.
I basically agree. I think there are no good lines to draw anywhere so it seems to me to be a difference of degree, although I’d guess we can propose minimal isolated systems that are not conscious, perhaps an isolated electron, but that kind of isolation seems rare (maybe impossible?) in the real world.
That being said, I don’t think the physical theories have picked out precise properties of “wholes” that don’t apply to small ubiquitous systems, just to lesser degrees.
Consider a table made of five pieces of wood: four legs and a top. Suppose we create the table just by stacking the top on the four legs, without any nails or glue, to keep things simple. Is the difference between the table versus an individual piece of wood a difference in degree or kind? I’m personally not sure, but I think many people would call it a difference in kind.
I think people either don’t have a precise definition in mind when they think of tables, or if they do, have something in mind that would specifically rule this out. Or they’ll revise their definition when presented with such an example: “Oh, but the legs have to be attached!” Of course, what do they mean by legs?
I think an alternate route to panpsychism is to argue that the electron has not just information integration but also the other properties you mentioned. It has “recurrent processing” because it can influence something else in its environment (say, a neighboring electron), which can then influence the original electron. We can get higher-order levels by looking at one electron influencing another, which influences another, and so on. The thing about Y predicting X would apply to electrons as well as neurons.
Cool post. :) I’m not sure if I understand the argument correctly, but what would you say to someone who cites the “fallacy of division”? For example, even though recurrent processes are made of feedforward ones, that doesn’t mean the purported consciousness of the recurrent processes also applies to the feedforward parts. My guess is that you’d reply that wholes can sometimes be different from the sum of their parts, but in these cases, there’s no reason to think there’s a discontinuity anywhere, i.e., no reason to think there’s a difference in kind rather than degree as the parts are arranged.
Consider a table made of five pieces of wood: four legs and a top. Suppose we create the table just by stacking the top on the four legs, without any nails or glue, to keep things simple. Is the difference between the table versus an individual piece of wood a difference in degree or kind? I’m personally not sure, but I think many people would call it a difference in kind.
I think an alternate route to panpsychism is to argue that the electron has not just information integration but also the other properties you mentioned. It has “recurrent processing” because it can influence something else in its environment (say, a neighboring electron), which can then influence the original electron. We can get higher-order levels by looking at one electron influencing another, which influences another, and so on. The thing about Y predicting X would apply to electrons as well as neurons.
The table analogy to this argument is to note that an individual piece of wood has many of the same properties as a table: you can put things on it, eat food from it, move it around your house as furniture, knock on it to make noise, etc.
I basically agree. I think there are no good lines to draw anywhere so it seems to me to be a difference of degree, although I’d guess we can propose minimal isolated systems that are not conscious, perhaps an isolated electron, but that kind of isolation seems rare (maybe impossible?) in the real world.
That being said, I don’t think the physical theories have picked out precise properties of “wholes” that don’t apply to small ubiquitous systems, just to lesser degrees.
I think people either don’t have a precise definition in mind when they think of tables, or if they do, have something in mind that would specifically rule this out. Or they’ll revise their definition when presented with such an example: “Oh, but the legs have to be attached!” Of course, what do they mean by legs?
Agreed. Good point.