3 ms·
> Saying rocks are conscious is a poor summary > The whole thing is a continuum and everything is made of matter, so there's a little bit of potential consciou
by skissane 3y ago
> Saying rocks are conscious is a poor summary
> The whole thing is a continuum and everything is made of matter, so there's a little bit of potential consciousness in all matter
I disagree that my summary is "poor"–because some panpsychists do say that rocks are actually conscious individuals, as opposed to merely containing "a little bit of potential consciousness". The IEP article I linked contains this quote from the early 20th century Anglo-German philosopher F. C. S. Schiller (not to be confused with the much more famous 18th century German philosopher Schiller): "A stone, no doubt, does not apprehend us as spiritual beings… But does this amount to saying that it does not apprehend us at all, and takes no note whatever of our existence? Not at all; it is aware of us and affected by us on the plane on which its own existence is passed… It faithfully exercises all the physical functions, and influences us by so doing. It gravitates and resists pressure, and obstructs…vibrations, and so forth, and makes itself respected as such a body. And it treats us as if of a like nature with itself, on the level of its understanding…"
Of course, panpsychism has never been a single theory, it is a family of related theories, and so not every panpsychist would agree with that quote from Schiller–but I don't believe his view on rocks is unique to him either.
- bongodongobob 3y agoI think it would be more fitting to say a rock, a grain of sand, or an atom is the least conscious thing. Pansychism isn't trying to claim it can think or anything like that. If that's your takeaway I think you are misunderstanding the analogy. A rock exists in the world and exerts it's "will" granted to it by the laws of physics. So rolling falling etc is how it "interacts" with its world. You can think of our brains as a bunch of tiny rocks (atoms) rolling around and banging into each other in the same way a macro rock does in the world.
- skissane 3y ago> I think it would be more fitting to say a rock, a grain of sand, or an atom is the least conscious thing. Pansychism isn't trying to claim it can think or anything like that. If that's your takeaway I think you are misunderstanding the analogy. No, I don't think I've misunderstood anything; on the contrary, I think you are mixing up thought and consciousness. Thought is just one type of consciousness among many; to say something is conscious doesn't necessarily imply it can think–possibly, many things are conscious yet unable to think thoughts (whether verbal thoughts, or thoughts composed of mental images, or whatever). I'd say that to be conscious is to be an entity for which Thomas Nagel's famous question "What is it like to be a bat?" has an answer; it is possible that the question has an answer for an entity, yet it is incapable of thought. A being could be completely conscious yet also completely incapable of thinking anything.
- bongodongobob 3y agoI don't disagree.