QUOTE: "But if one makes matter conscious in all its forms, as panpsychism does, then God indeed becomes superfluous.”

dhw: If one believes in a single conscious mind that had no source but has always simply been there, and is somehow present throughout the universe, then panpsychism does indeed become superfluous.

QUOTE: "So panpsychism at its deepest core is a strategy to get rid of God. Philip Goff may not be aware of this core."

dw: So God “at its deepest core” is a strategy to get rid of panpsychism.

DAVID: it is thus no surprise dhw, as an agnostic, favors considering panpsychism.

Dhw: as an agnostic does not favour considering panpsychism any more or any less than he favours considering an unknown and unknowable and sourceless source of consciousness, or an infinite, eternal, sourceless and mindless combination of energy and material which chanced to form a rudimentary consciousness that eventually evolved into living materials. I find all three theories equally difficult to believe.

We know.

If one believes in a single conscious mind that had no source but has always simply been there, and is somehow present throughout the universe, then panpsychism does indeed become superfluous.

QUOTE: "So panpsychism at its deepest core is a strategy to get rid of God. Philip Goff may not be aware of this core."

So God “at its deepest core” is a strategy to get rid of panpsychism.

DAVID: it is thus no surprise dhw, as an agnostic, favors considering panpsychism.

Dhw as an agnostic does not favour considering panpsychism any more or any less than he favours considering an unknown and unknowable and sourceless source of consciousness, or an infinite, eternal, sourceless and mindless combination of energy and material which chanced to form a rudimentary consciousness that eventually evolved into living materials. I find all three theories equally difficult to believe.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/07/goffs-gaffes.html#more

For another thing, and as I also pointed out in my earlier post, panpsychism creates new problems of its own. As common sense and Aristotelianism alike emphasize, conscious experience in the uncontroversial cases is closely linked to the presence of specialized sense organs, appetites or inner drives, and consequent locomotion or bodily movement in relation to the things experienced. It is because human beings, dogs, cats, bears, birds, lizards, etc. possess these features that few people doubt that they are all conscious. And it is because trees, grass, stones, water, etc. lack these features that few people believe they are conscious.

The point is in part epistemological, but also metaphysical. Aristotelians argue that there is no point to sentience in entities devoid of appetite and locomotion, so that (since nature does nothing in vain) we can conclude that such entities lack sentience. Some philosophers (such as Wittgensteinians) would argue that it is not even intelligible to posit consciousness in the absence of appropriate behavioral criteria. Naturally, all of this is controversial. But the point is that a theory that claims that electrons and the like are conscious faces obvious and grave metaphysical and epistemological hurdles, and thus can hardly claim parsimony, of all things, as the chief consideration in its favor!

So, Goff’s defense fails – and again, most of the problems are of Goff’s own making, because they have to do with parts of his position being inadvertently undermined by other parts. His exposure of the limits of Galileo’s mathematization of nature, his rejection of reductionism, his affirmation of external world realism, his call for parsimony – all of these elements of Goff’s position are admirable and welcome. But when their implications are consistently worked out, they lead away from panpsychism, not toward it.

Comment: this is an ongoing discussion in Feser. For more background read Feser's blog. Other interesting comments from his readers:

"as you say, panpsychists understand panpsychism as a solution to a metaphysical problem.

"And as you have nicely shown, this "problem" is a pseudo-problem, an illusory problem.

"I think the panpsychists do not understand what the real and actual metaphysical problem is for them, for which panpsychism is a solution.

"The real problem for them and the real motivation for or behind their theory is how to explain the appearance of consciousness in natural history and in the individual development of the animal in the face of a godless, material world.

"For without God, the appearance of consciousness in an unconscious material world is a true miracle. And miracles can be explained better with God.

"Or consciousness lies virtually or potentially hidden in matter, but then we have a kind of design which needs a designer.

"But if one makes matter conscious in all its forms, as panpsychism does, then God indeed becomes superfluous.

"So panpsychism at its deepest core is a strategy to get rid of God. Philip Goff may not be aware of this core."

Another comment:

"Bertrand Russell and Friedrich Nietzsche are among the greatest atheists in intellectual history. And it is no coincidence that they have inclinations and sympathies towards panpsychist ideas.

"So how do you become a panpsychist. One is first an atheist and a materialist and a physicalist. This is the modern default position. Then, however, the occurrence of consciousness cannot be reconciled properly with that position. So the logically consistent physicalist must let the physical get permeated with the mental."

Comment: it is thus no surprise dhw, as an agnostic, favors considering panpsychism

https://mindmatters.ai/2022/04/new-scientist-offers-a-sympathetic-account-of-panpsychism/

"Thomas Lewton tells us about his own journey at his site: “Studying physics, I thought telescopes and particle colliders would offer firm answers, but instead they raised more questions.”

"It can seem as if there is an insurmountable gap between our subjective experience of the world and our attempts to objectively describe it. And yet our brains are made of matter – so, you might think, the states of mind they generate must be explicable in terms of states of matter. The question is: how? And if we can’t explain consciousness in physical terms, how do we find a place for it in an all-embracing view of the universe?

"It can seem as if there is an insurmountable gap between our subjective experience of the world and our attempts to objectively describe it. And yet our brains are made of matter – so, you might think, the states of mind they generate must be explicable in terms of states of matter. The question is: how? And if we can’t explain consciousness in physical terms, how do we find a place for it in an all-embracing view of the universe?

"That’s an admirably blunt statement of the central problem, the failure of physicalism, the view that the mind is merely what the brain does. That, as philosopher David Papineau puts it, consciousness is just “brain processes that feel like something.”

"A surprising number of physicists are rethinking all that, “convinced that we will never make sense of the universe’s mysteries – things like how reality emerges from the fog of the quantum world and what the passage of time truly signifies – unless we reimagine the relationship between matter and mind.” Which, they realize, can’t be done simply by eliminating the mind from science thinking.

"Lewton sounds prepared to deal: “Modern physics was founded on the separation of mind and matter.” Indeed, it was. And if that doesn’t work, materialism is dead. His approach is shorn of the “any minute now, science will explain… ” that characterizes so much popular science writing in this area.

***

"Philip Goff explains, “The irony is that physicalism has done so well and explained so much precisely because it was designed to exclude consciousness.” But excluding something in principle does not cause it to cease to exist.

"However, what if…

"One option is to suggest that some form of consciousness, however fragmentary, is an intrinsic property of matter. At a fundamental level, this micro-consciousness is all that exists. The idea, known as panpsychism, rips up the physicalist handbook to offer a simple solution to the hard problem of consciousness, says Goff, by plugging the gap between our inner experiences and our objective, scientific descriptions of the world. If everything is to some extent conscious, we no longer have to account for our experience in terms of non-conscious components.

"So panpsychism is an effort to rescue naturalism (the view that nature is all there is, often called “materialism”) by including the mind in nature rather than attempting to disprove its existence.

***

"Fundamentally, the scientists Lewton writes about acknowledge that neuroscience does not smooth everything over by explaining how or why the brain produces conscious experiences. And naturalism cannot indefinitely get away with “just around the corner” talk (promissory materialism).

"If efforts to rid science of the human mind are widely seen to be failing, the world will hardly be the poorer. But panpsychism takes science into unknown territory. We must wait to see what unfolds."

Comment: it is much easier to accept that design is obviously present in our reality. Only a mind can design. Therefore mind is at work in our reality. The struggle is the fight to save pure materialism. The struggle is obviously illogically foolish.

dhw: There is no smudging. Animals share our awareness/consciousness of external conditions, and are sentient, communicative, decision-making etc., just as we are. But they do not have the additional levels of consciousness that enable us to do all the extras that mark us out as being very different from them. In other words, “we have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals.” Why do you keep trying to manufacture a disagreement?

DAVID: I disagree with your giving animals any part of consciousness other than awareness. They are simply conscious as I view it.

I have defined consciousness as awareness, but you persist in ignoring my statement that there are different levels of awareness/consciousness, although that is precisely what you keep saying yourself! You seem to be desperate to define consciousness as human self-awareness and to manufacture a disagreement out of that.

DAVID: You are having fun: God does not have neurons, only animals do.

dhw: Yes, I am pointing out various discrepancies in your thinking. You do recognize mental activity that is not related to neurons, e.g. in God and, as below, in souls.

DAVID: Remember: Souls and God are supernatural, not requiring neurons.

Yes again, I am pointing out that you do recognize mental activity that is not related to neurons. You simply refuse to recognize it in bacteria and plants.

dhw: And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active.

DAVID: You are pipe-dreaming. I have never said bacteria are intelligent. They act under intelligently implanted instructions.

dhw: You are not reading what I wrote, which relates to what most scientists agree on. I know you disagree with most scientists. That is why I query your statement that “The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.” (My bold)

DAVID: "Most" scientists are not the few you keep repeating.

It was you who acknowledged that most scientists now accept bacterial intelligence, but I can’t find the reference now.

DAVID: I disagree with your smudging together animal awareness with the attributes of human consciousness. Adler made a great point about the importance of the difference.

dhw: There is no smudging. Animals share our awareness/consciousness of external conditions, and are sentient, communicative, decision-making etc., just as we are. But they do not have the additional levels of consciousness that enable us to do all the extras that mark us out as being very different from them. In other words, “we have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals.” Why do you keep trying to manufacture a disagreement?

I disagree with your giving animals any part of consciousness other than awareness. They are simply conscious as I view it.

DAVID: You are having fun: God does not have neurons, only animals do.

dhw: Yes, I am pointing out various discrepancies in your thinking. You do recognize mental activity that is not related to neurons, e.g. in God and, as below, in souls.

Remember: Souls and God are supernatural, not requiring neurons.

dhw: And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active.

DAVID: You are pipe-dreaming. I have never said bacteria are intelligent. They act under intelligently implanted instructions.

dhw: You are not reading what I wrote, which relates to what most scientists agree on. I know you disagree with most scientists. That is why I query your statement that “The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.” (My bold)

"Most" scientists are not the few you keep repeating.

dhw: You even accept a bottom-up view of evolution in so far as it starts with comparatively simple forms of life and evolves into ever increasing complexity. But I accept all your reservations concerning the mental capacity of all materials. I find that as difficult to believe in as a universal mind that has simply always been there.

DAVID: I fully understand all of your difficulties, especially your uncontrolled tendency to humanize god

I’m glad you understand that I am torn between two hypotheses, each of which seems to be equally unlikely. Nothing to do with humanizing. See “unanswered questions”.

I do.

dhw: You have just equated awareness with consciousness, and yes the animal is aware, which means it is conscious. Consciousness does not mean self-awareness. There are different levels of awareness/consciousness. Humans have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals. There is no disagreement.

DAVID: I disagree with your smudging together animal awareness with the attributes of human consciousness. Adler made a great point about the importance of the difference.

There is no smudging. Animals share our awareness/consciousness of external conditions, and are sentient, communicative, decision-making etc., just as we are. But they do not have the additional levels of consciousness that enable us to do all the extras that mark us out as being very different from them. In other words, “we have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals.” Why do you keep trying to manufacture a disagreement?

dhw: […] As for panpsychism, as I understand it, the term is open to any number of interpretations, including your own panentheism (God’s consciousness permeates but also transcends our reality). This a top-down version. I like to consider an atheistic possibility of a bottom-up version, in which energy and materials (or at least some of them) have their own rudimentary mental components, from which physical life and mental complexity have evolved to the forms we know today.

DAVID: I think bottom up is a stretch. The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.

dhw: How very strange. I thought you thought your God was mentally active. Now he’s not just pure energy, but he also has neurons.

DAVID: You are having fun: God does not have neurons, only animals do.

Yes, I am pointing out various discrepancies in your thinking. You do recognize mental activity that is not related to neurons, e.g. in God and, as below, in souls.

dhw: And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active.

DAVID: You are pipe-dreaming. I have never said bacteria are intelligent. They act under intelligently implanted instructions.

You are not reading what I wrote, which relates to what most scientists agree on. I know you disagree with most scientists. That is why I query your statement that “The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.” (My bold)

dhw: You even accept a bottom-up view of evolution in so far as it starts with comparatively simple forms of life and evolves into ever increasing complexity. But I accept all your reservations concerning the mental capacity of all materials. I find that as difficult to believe in as a universal mind that has simply always been there.

DAVID: I fully understand all of your difficulties, especially your uncontrolled tendency to humanize god

I’m glad you understand that I am torn between two hypotheses, each of which seems to be equally unlikely. Nothing to do with humanizing. See “unanswered questions”.

dhw: You keep repeating what I say as if I hadn’t said it. Humans have a vastly greater level of conscious/awareness than other life forms. That does NOT mean that other organisms do not have their own degree of consciousness/awareness. There is no disagreement between us! But you are, of course, welcome to disagree with the many scientists who believe that plants and bacteria have a degree of awareness.

DAVID: Our disagreement is your use of equating awareness with consciousness. Awareness only means the animal is conscious.

dhw: You have just equated awareness with consciousness, and yes the animal is aware, which means it is conscious. Consciousness does not mean self-awareness. There are different levels of awareness/consciousness. Humans have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals. There is no disagreement.

I disagree with your smudging together animal awareness with the attributes of human consciousness. Adler made a great point about the importance of the difference.

Transferred from the “plasma” thread:

DAVID: As for panpsychism, I view it as a far out substitute for our reality actually being within God's consciousness.

dhw: […] As for panpsychism, as I understand it, the term is open to any number of interpretations, including your own panentheism (God’s consciousness permeates but also transcends our reality). This a top-down version. I like to consider an atheistic possibility of a bottom-up version, in which energy and materials (or at least some of them) have their own rudimentary mental components, from which physical life and mental complexity have evolved to the forms we know today.

DAVID: I think bottom up is a stretch. The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.

dhw: How very strange. I thought you thought your God was mentally active. Now he’s not just pure energy, but he also has neurons.

You are having fun: God does not have neurons, only animals do.

dhw: And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active.

You are pipe-dreaming. I have never said bacteria are intelligent. They act under intelligently implanted instructions

dhw:You even accept a bottom-up view of evolution in so far as it starts with comparatively simple forms of life and evolves into ever increasing complexity. But I accept all your reservations concerning the mental capacity of all materials. I find that as difficult to believe in as a universal mind that has simply always been there.

I fully understand all of your difficulties, especially your uncontrolled tendency to humanize god

DAVID: Our disagreement is your use of equating awareness with consciousness. Awareness only means the animal is conscious.

You have just equated awareness with consciousness, and yes the animal is aware, which means it is conscious. Consciousness does not mean self-awareness. There are different levels of awareness/consciousness. Humans have a vastly greater level of consciousness/awareness than our fellow animals. There is no disagreement.

Transferred from the “plasma” thread:

DAVID: As for panpsychism, I view it as a far out substitute for our reality actually being within God's consciousness.

dhw: […] As for panpsychism, as I understand it, the term is open to any number of interpretations, including your own panentheism (God’s consciousness permeates but also transcends our reality). This a top-down version. I like to consider an atheistic possibility of a bottom-up version, in which energy and materials (or at least some of them) have their own rudimentary mental components, from which physical life and mental complexity have evolved to the forms we know today.

DAVID: I think bottom up is a stretch. The only mental activity I recognize along with most scientists is related to neurons, especially in brains.

How very strange. I thought you thought your God was mentally active. Now he’s not just pure energy, but he also has neurons. And I also thought you were a dualist, and firmly believed in an immaterial soul which was capable of mental activity. And I also thought you said most scientists now agree that brainless bacteria are intelligent, i.e. mentally active. You even accept a bottom-up view of evolution in so far as it starts with comparatively simple forms of life and evolves into ever increasing complexity. But I accept all your reservations concerning the mental capacity of all materials. I find that as difficult to believe in as a universal mind that has simply always been there.

dhw: The biggest danger to objectivity is the assumption that human consciousness is the only form of consciousness. (I prefer the term “intelligence”, as it avoids confusion with human self-awareness.) If we take consciousness to be a synonym of awareness, and if our criteria for awareness include sentience, communication, decision-making, then it is clearly absurd to assume that plants and bacteria are NOT conscious. […] Human consciousness includes self-awareness.My point is that there are other forms and levels of consciousness/awareness[...] There are massive distinctions, however, between levels of consciousness/awareness.

DAVID: I do not believe in your definitions. Human consciousness would not be the'hard problem' under your approach if applied to humans. Animals are conscious and aware at various levels but there is a vast difference in the two levels.

dhw: You do not believe that consciousness = awareness? Then please give us your own definition. The rest of your comment is a direct repetition of my own (now bolded). Thank you for your agreement.

DAVID: Awareness is just one aspect of consciousness as experienced by humans. I will only accept that animals are conscious and therefore are aware. Complete consciousness which means the ability to conceptualize, to have abstract thoughts and to be aware that they are aware is only found in human consciousness. You are trying to smudge Adler's point that we are different in kind!

dhw: You keep repeating what I say as if I hadn’t said it. Humans have a vastly greater level of conscious/awareness than other life forms. That does NOT mean that other organisms do not have their own degree of consciousness/awareness. There is no disagreement between us! But you are, of course, welcome to disagree with the many scientists who believe that plants and bacteria have a degree of awareness.

Our disagreement is your use of equating awareness with consciousness. Awareness only means the animal is conscious

DAVID: I do not believe in your definitions. Human consciousness would not be the'hard problem' under your approach if applied to humans. Animals are conscious and aware at various levels but there is a vast difference in the two levels.

dhw: You do not believe that consciousness = awareness? Then please give us your own definition. The rest of your comment is a direct repetition of my own (now bolded). Thank you for your agreement.

DAVID: Awareness is just one aspect of consciousness as experienced by humans. I will only accept that animals are conscious and therefore are aware. Complete consciousness which means the ability to conceptualize, to have abstract thoughts and to be aware that they are aware is only found in human consciousness. You are trying to smudge Adler's point that we are different in kind!

You keep repeating what I say as if I hadn’t said it. Humans have a vastly greater level of conscious/awareness than other life forms. That does NOT mean that other organisms do not have their own degree of consciousness/awareness. There is no disagreement between us! But you are, of course, welcome to disagree with the many scientists who believe that plants and bacteria have a degree of awareness.

dhw: The biggest danger to objectivity is the assumption that human consciousness is the only form of consciousness. (I prefer the term “intelligence”, as it avoids confusion with human self-awareness.) If we take consciousness to be a synonym of awareness, and if our criteria for awareness include sentience, communication, decision-making, then it is clearly absurd to assume that plants and bacteria are NOT conscious. […] Human consciousness includes self-awareness.My point is that there are other forms and levels of consciousness/awareness[...] There are massive distinctions, however, between levels of consciousness/awareness.

DAVID: I do not believe in your definitions. Human consciousness would not be the'hard problem' under your approach if applied to humans. Animals are conscious and aware at various levels but there is a vast difference in the two levels.

dhw: You do not believe that consciousness = awareness? Then please give us your own definition. The rest of your comment is a direct repetition of my own (now bolded). Thank you for your agreement.

Awareness is just one aspect of consciousness as experienced by humans. I will only accept that animals are conscious and therefore are aware. Complete consciousness which means the ability to conceptualize, to have abstract thoughts and to be aware that they are aware is only found in human consciousness. You are trying to smudge Adler's point that we are different in kind!

dhw: (re “Liver study”) Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

DAVID: God gave them intelligent instructions to follow. They do not have their own innate intelligence.

dhw: Stated with absolute authority, but many scientists disagree with you.

DAVID: You have three/four on your side. ID has hundreds.

dhw: ID does not propose that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed all plants and bacteria to adapt and innovate in response to every single environmental change in the history of life, or that he popped in to dabble each one. Please stop pretending that ID offers anything beyond the argument for Intelligent Design. Many scientists believe that bacteria and plants have their own form of intelligence. This is not an argument against ID. It can be argued that their intelligence was designed by your God.

You are correct that ID declares there is a designer. I have never discussed my extrapolations with any of them, but mine are based on the need for and the existence of a designer.

DAVID: I do not believe in your definitions. Human consciousness would not be the'hard problem' under your approach if applied to humans. Animals are conscious and aware at various levels but there is a vast difference in the two levels.

You do not believe that consciousness = awareness? Then please give us your own definition. The rest of your comment is a direct repetition of my own (now bolded). Thank you for your agreement.

dhw: If we rid ourselves of our prejudices, and judge solely by the behaviour of plants and bacteria, there is no way we can exclude the possibility that they have their own particular, non-human form of intelligence. But that does NOT mean anthropomorphizing them.

DAVID: Apparent 'intelligence' can be automatic intelligently designed programs as Taiz notes.

dhw: Though he doesn’t say where the programmes come from. Thank you for using “can be”. My point is that apparent intelligence can be real intelligence, and many scientists believe that it is.

DAVID: And my point is from the outside they look intelligent, but are simply programmed.

I know that is your belief. And you believe your God personally dabbled every new action of plants and bacteria, or preprogrammed them 3.8 billion years ago. And all the time, his one and only aim was to specially design H. sapiens! Maybe he simply gave them the intelligence to work it all out for themselves,

dhw: (re “Liver study”) Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

DAVID: God gave them intelligent instructions to follow. They do not have their own innate intelligence.

dhw: Stated with absolute authority, but many scientists disagree with you.

DAVID: You have three/four on your side. ID has hundreds.

ID does not propose that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed all plants and bacteria to adapt and innovate in response to every single environmental change in the history of life, or that he popped in to dabble each one. Please stop pretending that ID offers anything beyond the argument for Intelligent Design. Many scientists believe that bacteria and plants have their own form of intelligence. This is not an argument against ID. It can be argued that their intelligence was designed by your God.

dhw: The biggest danger to objectivity is the assumption that human consciousness is the only form of consciousness. (I prefer the term “intelligence”, as it avoids confusion with human self-awareness.) If we take consciousness to be a synonym of awareness, and if our criteria for awareness include sentience, communication, decision-making, then it is clearly absurd to assume that plants and bacteria are NOT conscious.

DAVID: The absurdity is your changing the definition of consciousness to intelligence. True human consciousness implies self-awareness as part of the concept of human awareness. Non-human aware states of reality are conscious, but do not have consciousness.

dhw: I have defined consciousness as awareness, not as intelligence (which includes consciousness but includes other attributes as well), and you have fallen into the very trap which I wished to avoid! Human consciousness includes self-awareness. My point is that there are other forms and levels of consciousness/awareness. I cannot see any distinction between being conscious/aware and having consciousness/awareness. There are massive distinctions, however, between levels of consciousness/awareness.

I do not believe in your definitions. Human consciousness would not be the'hard problem' under your approach if applied to humans. Animals are conscious and aware at various levels but there is a vast difference in the two levels.

dhw: Your own explanation for the appearance of consciousness is that your God preprogrammed or personally dabbled every single manifestation of these attributes. I wonder where these researchers think the “programmes” came from. Meanwhile, you yourself believe it to be possible that your God is plasma, or pure energy. Do plasma/pure energy have a brain? If we rid ourselves of our prejudices, and judge solely by the behaviour of plants and bacteria, there is no way we can exclude the possibility that they have their own particular, non-human form of intelligence. But that does NOT mean anthropomorphizing them.

DAVID: Apparent 'intelligence' can be automatic intelligently designed programs as Taiz notes.

dhw: Though he doesn’t say where the programmes come from. Thank you for using “can be”. My point is that apparent intelligence can be real intelligence, and many scientists believe that it is.

And my point is from the outside they look intelligent, but are simply programmed.

QUOTE (FROM “LIVER STUDY”): "Our results suggest that liver cells and sinusoids, which are the smallest blood vessels in the body, communicate with each other in both directions: The blood vessels instruct the hepatocytes and the hepatocytes send signals back to the blood vessels to establish and preserve the liquid-crystal order. This bi-directional communication is a central part of the self-organization of liver tissue."

dhw: Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

DAVID: God gave them intelligent instructions to follow. They do not have their own innate intelligence.

dhw: Stated with absolute authority, but many scientists disagree with you.

You have three/four on your side. ID has hundreds.

DAVID: The absurdity is your changing the definition of consciousness to intelligence. True human consciousness implies self-awareness as part of the concept of human awareness. Non-human aware states of reality are conscious, but do not have consciousness.

I have defined consciousness as awareness, not as intelligence (which includes consciousness but includes other attributes as well), and you have fallen into the very trap which I wished to avoid! Human consciousness includes self-awareness. My point is that there are other forms and levels of consciousness/awareness. I cannot see any distinction between being conscious/aware and having consciousness/awareness. There are massive distinctions, however, between levels of consciousness/awareness.

dhw: Your own explanation for the appearance of consciousness is that your God preprogrammed or personally dabbled every single manifestation of these attributes. I wonder where these researchers think the “programmes” came from. Meanwhile, you yourself believe it to be possible that your God is plasma, or pure energy. Do plasma/pure energy have a brain? If we rid ourselves of our prejudices, and judge solely by the behaviour of plants and bacteria, there is no way we can exclude the possibility that they have their own particular, non-human form of intelligence. But that does NOT mean anthropomorphizing them.

DAVID: Apparent 'intelligence' can be automatic intelligently designed programs as Taiz notes.

Though he doesn’t say where the programmes come from. Thank you for using “can be”. My point is that apparent intelligence can be real intelligence, and many scientists believe that it is.

QUOTE (FROM “LIVER STUDY”): "Our results suggest that liver cells and sinusoids, which are the smallest blood vessels in the body, communicate with each other in both directions: The blood vessels instruct the hepatocytes and the hepatocytes send signals back to the blood vessels to establish and preserve the liquid-crystal order. This bi-directional communication is a central part of the self-organization of liver tissue."

dhw: Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

DAVID: God gave them intelligent instructions to follow. They do not have their own innate intelligence.

Stated with absolute authority, but many scientists disagree with you.

QUOTE: "'The biggest danger of anthropomorphizing plants in research is that it undermines the objectivity of the researcher," Taiz says. "What we've seen is that plants and animals evolved very different life strategies. The brain is very expensive organ, and there's absolutely no advantage to the plant to have a highly developed nervous system."

DAVID: I agree. Consciousness is not everywhere. Plants have intelligently designed responses to stimuli, just as bacteria do.

QUOTE: "This leads Taiz to conclude that “if there are animals that don't have consciousness, then you can be pretty confident that plants, which don't even have neurons – let alone brains – don't have it either.'”

DAVID: Same conclusion: consciousness comes with a brain.

dhw: The biggest danger to objectivity is the assumption that human consciousness is the only form of consciousness. (I prefer the term “intelligence”, as it avoids confusion with human self-awareness.) If we take consciousness to be a synonym of awareness, and if our criteria for awareness include sentience, communication, decision-making, then it is clearly absurd to assume that plants and bacteria are NOT conscious.

The absurdity is your changing the definition of consciousness to intelligence. True human consciousness implies self-awareness as part of the concept of human awareness. Non-human aware states of reality are conscious, but do not have consciousness.

dhw: Your own explanation for the appearance of consciousness is that your God preprogrammed or personally dabbled every single manifestation of these attributes. I wonder where these researchers think the “programmes” came from. Meanwhile, you yourself believe it to be possible that your God is plasma, or pure energy. Do plasma/pure energy have a brain? If we rid ourselves of our prejudices, and judge solely by the behaviour of plants and bacteria, there is no way we can exclude the possibility that they have their own particular, non-human form of intelligence. But that does NOT mean anthropomorphizing them.

Apparent 'intelligence' can be automatic intelligently designed programs as Taiz notes.

QUOTE (FROM “LIVER STUDY”): "Our results suggest that liver cells and sinusoids, which are the smallest blood vessels in the body, communicate with each other in both directions: The blood vessels instruct the hepatocytes and the hepatocytes send signals back to the blood vessels to establish and preserve the liquid-crystal order. This bi-directional communication is a central part of the self-organization of liver tissue."

dhw: Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

God gave them intelligent instructions to follow. They do not have their own innate intelligence.

DAVID: I agree. Consciousness is not everywhere. Plants have intelligently designed responses to stimuli, just as bacteria do.

QUOTE: "This leads Taiz to conclude that “if there are animals that don't have consciousness, then you can be pretty confident that plants, which don't even have neurons – let alone brains – don't have it either.'”

DAVID: Same conclusion: consciousness comes with a brain.

The biggest danger to objectivity is the assumption that human consciousness is the only form of consciousness. (I prefer the term “intelligence”, as it avoids confusion with human self-awareness.) If we take consciousness to be a synonym of awareness, and if our criteria for awareness include sentience, communication, decision-making, then it is clearly absurd to assume that plants and bacteria are NOT conscious. Your own explanation for the appearance of consciousness is that your God preprogrammed or personally dabbled every single manifestation of these attributes. I wonder where these researchers think the “programmes” came from. Meanwhile, you yourself believe it to be possible that your God is plasma, or pure energy. Do plasma/pure energy have a brain? If we rid ourselves of our prejudices, and judge solely by the behaviour of plants and bacteria, there is no way we can exclude the possibility that they have their own particular, non-human form of intelligence. But that does NOT mean anthropomorphizing them.

QUOTE (FROM “LIVER STUDY”): "Our results suggest that liver cells and sinusoids, which are the smallest blood vessels in the body, communicate with each other in both directions: The blood vessels instruct the hepatocytes and the hepatocytes send signals back to the blood vessels to establish and preserve the liquid-crystal order. This bi-directional communication is a central part of the self-organization of liver tissue."

Communication and self-organization are attributes of intelligence. As always, I propose that these processes are now automatic (until things go wrong), but the cell communities themselves would have used their perhaps God-given intelligence to set up the system in the first place.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/these-scientists-don-t-think-plants-think?utm_source...

"The idea that plants might be conscious has found renewed vigour since a 2006 paper heralded the arrival of a new subfield of botany known as plant neurobiology (PN).

"PN researchers have argued that there are parallels between electrical signalling in plants and the nervous systems of animals, and even for a botanical equivalent of the nervous system based around hormones belonging to the auxin class acting like neurotransmitters. They hold that plants have intelligence, intention and can even learn. Some have revived Darwin’s idea that a root tip is a “brain-like command centre”.

"But these ideas have not been received enormously well. Indeed, one of the authors of the current paper was among the many scientists to sign a letter published in 2007 arguing that plant neurobiology was a field without a subject of study: that is, plants simply don’t have neurobiology.

"That author, Lincoln Taiz of the University of California, Santa Cruz, US, along with seven other colleagues from various international institutions, has now published a critical review of the state of play of the field of plant neurobiology. And the title says it all: “Plants neither possess nor require consciousness.”

"Taiz and colleagues survey several problems with PN, from the philosophical to the experimental. They argue that plant behaviour, initiated by internal electrical signalling, which is used, in part, for messaging across the large distances of the organism, are genetically preprogramed.
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"For plants, constant vigilance comes at reproductive cost

"These behaviours have been mistakenly anthropomorphised, understood by projecting human traits on to non-human organisms, by PN researchers. In seeing something human in a plant’s reactions, advocates of PN have erroneously concluded that plants must have intention, intelligence and consciousness. The danger of this, says Taiz, “is that it undermines the objectivity of the researcher”.

"Similarly, they dismiss, or more carefully parse, the significance of a number of key experimental findings in the field, concluding that much of PN’s empirical backing is far more equivocal that advocates admit.

***

“'Recently,” write Taiz and his co-authors, “Todd E. Feinberg and Jon M. Mallatt conducted a broad survey of the anatomical, neurophysiological, behavioural, and evolutionary literature from which they were able to derive a consensus set of principles that allowed them to hypothesise how and when primary consciousness, the most basic type of sensory experience, evolved.”

"Based on their research “Feinberg and Mallatt concluded that the only animals that satisfied their criteria for consciousness were the vertebrates (including fish), arthropods (e.g., insects, crabs), and cephalopods (e.g., octopuses, squids).”

"Plants, notably, do feature on this list.

"This leads Taiz to conclude that “if there are animals that don't have consciousness, then you can be pretty confident that plants, which don't even have neurons – let alone brains – don't have it either.'”

Comment: Same conclusion: consciousness comes with a brain.

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-dont-case-consciousness.html

"'Feinberg and Mallatt concluded that only vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopods possess the threshold brain structure for consciousness. And if there are animals that don't have consciousness, then you can be pretty confident that plants, which don't even have neurons—let alone brains—don't have it either," says Lincoln Taiz, Professor Emeritus of molecular, cell, and developmental biology at University of California at Santa Cruz.

***

"'The biggest danger of anthropomorphizing plants in research is that it undermines the objectivity of the researcher," Taiz says. "What we've seen is that plants and animals evolved very different life strategies. The brain is very expensive organ, and there's absolutely no advantage to the plant to have a highly developed nervous system."

"Plant neurobiology proponents draw parallels between electrical signaling in plants and nervous systems in animals. But Taiz and his co-authors argue that the proponents draw this parallel by describing the brain as something no more complex than a sponge. The Feinberg-Mallatt model of consciousness, by contrast, describes a specific level of organizational complexity of the brain that is required for subjective experience.

"Plants use electrical signals in two ways: to regulate the distribution of charged molecules across membranes and to send messages long-distance across the organism. In the former, a plant's leaves might curl up because the movement of ions resulted in movement of water out of the cells, which changes their shape; and in the latter, an insect bite on one leaf might initiate defense responses of distant leaves. Both actions can appear like a plant is choosing to react to a stimulus, but Taiz and his co-authors emphasize that these responses are genetically encoded and have been fine-tuned through generations of natural selection.

"'I feel a special responsibility to take a public position because I'm a co-author of a plant physiology textbook," he says. "I know a lot of people in the plant neurobiology community would like to see their field in the textbooks, but so far, there are just too many unanswered questions.'"

Comment: I agree. Consciousness is not everywhere. Plants have intelligently designed responses to stimuli, just as bacteria do.

dhw: The subject of this thread is panpsychism, and the relative reasonableness or unreasonableness of the alternative “first causes”.

DAVID: I have always followed the Kalem principal: the universe appears from the Big Bang theory to have been created. What is created must have a first cause. I chose God.

dhw: I know you did. And I find your choice of an eternal, sourceless, all-knowing, conscious, top-down creative mind no more reasonable/unreasonable than the choice of an eternal and infinite universe (something must have preceded the Big Bang, if it happened) eternally producing energy and matter in an infinite number of combinations until there is one that leads to a rudimentary consciousness which develops bottom-up into life and evolution. I guess that sums it up!

Yes.