Categoría: Panpsychism
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Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem
Simply put, the Hard Problem asks the following question: how can the machinery of the brain (the neurons and synapses) produce consciousness — the colours that we see, for example, or the sounds that we hear? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/david-chalmers-and-the-puzzle-of-consciousness/8679884 «Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem. The Hard Problem arises only if one makes a metaphysical…
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Physical theories of consciousness reduce to panpsychism
The necessary features for consciousness in prominent physical theories of consciousness that are actually described in terms of physical processes do not exclude panpsychism, the possibility that consciousness is ubiquitous in nature, including in things which aren’t typically considered alive. I’m not claiming panpsychism is true, although this significantly increases my credence in it, and…
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A conversation between Brian Tomasik and Luke Muehlhauser
Luke and Mr. Tomasik found that they agreed about the following: Physicalism and functionalism about consciousness. Specifically, Mr. Tomasik endorses “Type A” physicalism, as described in his article “Is There a Hard Problem of Consciousness?” Luke isn’t certain he endorses Type A physicalism as defined in that article, but he thinks his views are much…
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What if a panpsychist view of consciousness encourages us to have more babies?
Danny Donabedian wrote: Assuming a pan-psychist view of consciousness for a moment, with the potential for suffering subroutines to extend to fundamental physical particles and the simplest of physical systems, I am unsure if more complex systems like those found in living creatures and their neural networks or even unicellular organisms increase or decrease net…
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The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness by Brian Tomasik
This essay explains my version of an eliminativist approach to understanding consciousness. It suggests that we stop thinking in terms of «conscious» and «unconscious» and instead look at physical systems for what they are and what they can do. This perspective dissolves some biases in our usual perspective and shows us that the world is not composed…
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The hypothesis of the universe self-simulating itself in a strange loop
A paper from the Quantum Gravity Research institute proposes there is an underlying panconsciousness. The physical universe is a «strange loop» says the new paper titled «The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics» from the team at the Quantum Gravity Research, a Los Angeles-based theoretical physics institute founded by the scientist and entrepreneur Klee Irwin. They take Bostrom’s simulation…
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Physical theories of consciousness reduce to panpsychism, by Michael St. Jules
The necessary features for consciousness in prominent physical theories of consciousness that are actually described in terms of physical processes do not exclude panpsychism, the possibility that consciousness is ubiquitous in nature, including in things which aren’t typically considered alive. I’m not claiming panpsychism is true, although this significantly increases my credence in it, and…
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If we are sentient robots, without will, sentience is not useful. And if it’s useful, how can it be?
When it is stated that sentience has a purpose, this idea is usually explained by indicating that sentience is useful because it motivates doing certain things and avoiding others. In addition, in this explanation, it is usually indicated that sentience motivates but does not force. That is, under this explanation, sentience is not simply the…
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The importance of phenomenal binding, by David Pearce
We normally assume a fundamental distinction between conscious and non-conscious systems. Instead, I explore the possibility that what makes animals special isn’t consciousness per se, but phenomenal binding. Unless spooky “strong” emergence is true, then a termite colony, or the enteric nervous system, or a classical digital computer, or the population of the United States…
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The Physical and Consciousness: One World Conforming to Different Descriptions, by Magnus Vinding
Panpsychism is the doctrine that the world’s fundamental physical stuff also has primitive experiential properties. Unlike the physicalistic idealism explored here, panpsychism doesn’t claim that the world’s fundamental physical stuff is experiential. Panpsychism is best treated as a form of property-dualism. How, one may wonder, is Pearce’s view different from panpsychism, and from property dualist views more…