From Physicalism to PanPsychism

Actually written JANUARY 26, 2023

I understand that recently there has been a turn away from physicalism and toward panpsychism. Prominent intellectuals are experimenting with it, yer basic David Chalmers and Rupert Sheldrake.

My gut reaction: Maybe panpsychism is just a variant of physicalism. But what’s special about panpsychism is how it deals with what I call the “boundary problem”. (And I suppose the boundary problem is a consequence of the “special pleading” fallacy.)

From my two previous writings about physicalism, one can see the structure of my argument against physicalism. The flaw I keep trying to point out is this: Physicalists cannot draw a non-arbitrary boundary between what physical stuff is conscious, and what is not. I call this the “boundary problem”. And “complexity mysticism” is just their way of trying to hide this boundary problem.

[The boundary problem is not my only objection to physicalism. There is also the “infinite regress of homunculi” problem [aka John Haugeland’s “paradox of mechanical reason”], which I suspect is a mirror of the problem with representationalism - that if we become aware of an object by first becoming aware of a representation of that object, then you end up needing infinitely more representations to explain our awareness of the representation.]

I just want to inject what I regard as an example of complexity mysticism that might help show the problem.

Physicalist Dan Dennet’s apparent version of complexity mysticism is “winning a competition.” When a representation wins out over competing representations, it becomes conscious. Thus Dennet implies the boundary is between those representations that win the competition, and everything else. How? Maybe he can explain why winning a competition provides a solid solution to the boundary problem; and I just don’t understand it yet. But my hunch is against this. I mean, I can’t imagine how a representation winning a competition results in consciousness. Honestly, can you? Sounds really mystical to me.

Anyway, back to panpsychism.

If the boundary problem is legitimate, then all attempts at defining a physical boundary between what is conscious and what is not conscious fail in principle. All attempted boundary definitions are thus arbitrary. And if this is so, then we are free to put the boundary anywhere we like. So, why not move the boundary to include everything? Why not say that everything is conscious?

Of course I’m suggesting that panpsychists are capitalizing on the arbitrariness of the boundary. And if this is true, then panpsychists naturally need some way to hide this. They too, need some kind of mysticism to hide the boundary problem lurking in their theory.

Well, such is my speculation. I wonder whether my speculation would survive an actual survey and study of panpsychism. Ugh. I wish I had the time and discipline to do that studying.

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