Consciousness; a radically new theory. Romansh? (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 29, 2015, 13:48 (3223 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...]The description of panpsychism that I like asserts that “each spatio-temporal thing has a mental or ‘inner' aspect. [...] there may be varying degrees in which things have inner subjective or quasi-conscious aspects, some very unlike what we experience as consciousness.” (Oxford Companion to Philosophy) .... I do not subscribe to this hypothesis, but simply offer it as an equally reasonable/unreasonable alternative to the inexplicable creative talents of God and chance.-DAVID: I find the term 'quasi-consciousness' as a neat cop-out to escape the trap of chance or design as the only alternatives. As I view universal consciousness, from which your thought begins I believe, it has created animate and inanimate forms, but nothing 'quasi'. Quasi-consciousness presumes since God is in everything He imparts some of His mentation to everything. I find no evidence for that in anything I have studied. A rock is still a rock. A single cell still responds automatically to stimuli and appears to have some degree of mental choosing, but that is just 'appearance' without any proof.-This particular thought of mine emphatically does NOT begin with a universal consciousness. It is the very opposite. It begins with the idea that some things have evolved “a mental or ‘inner' aspect” - a kind of intelligence very different from our own, as in single-cell life forms, according to the many experts with whom you disagree. However, I share your scepticism concerning rocks, and I have absolutely no idea to what extent mentation may extend beyond bacteria, but I am not prepared to reject the possibility that some form of intelligence may have evolved in certain materials, which enabled them to combine and create the first forms of life. This hypothesis suggests that mentation/quasi-consciousness/non-human intelligence or whatever you like to call it BEGAN with “things” - a hypothesis I find no more and no less convincing than those of a causeless universal consciousness that simply IS, or chance randomly putting the elements of life together, neither of which is substantiated by any evidence other than the speculative interpretations of their supporters.
 
DAVID: And a pantheist (very closely related to panpsychism) has the pope's ear with terrible results. I think the Earth is a special planet with interlocking and self-correcting properties to allow for life:-https://stream.org/scientific-pantheist-who-advises-pope-francis/-Many fixed beliefs have terrible results. I don't think anyone would disagree that Earth has interlocking and self-correcting properties that allow for life, since life exists on Earth. In a few billion years, those properties will presumably disappear, along with life, since all matter changes. Other than your disapproval of Schellnhuber's apparently atheistic espousal of the Gaia theory, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.