Panpsychism is a vague doctrine, as is emergentism. Debating the merits of either is interesting, but is only useful if it leads to an actual theory of mind that more specific and makes testable claims about reality. Once that happens, the debate is moot, I think.
No, nobody does talk like that, however, the information that H and O will form a liquid is in the atom. Even if we didn't know how to derive that H2O will form a liquid, we would have an idea of how to do this from physics and chemistry. Then we would wait until science progressed and then we would be able to derive it, which we have done, and now science has progressed so we can derive it. Happy story.Bohm2 wrote:But again, the issue is that nobody goes around referring to the intrinsic properties that are responsible for these macroscopic properties as "proto-liquid", or "proto-life" because it's understood that these are macroscopic properties that do not exist at the more fundamental level.Mgrinder wrote:I don't agree with this. If aliens know alot about Hydrogen and oxygen, they can reason that they will form a liquid under certain pressure and temperature, even if water has never been discovered on their world. Hence the "liquidity" is there in the intrinsic properties of H2 and O2. In fact, we can do this today, our science is good enough.
The same does not apply to conscious experience. If it were "emergent" like a liquid, the information would be "in the atom", even if we couldn't do it today, we could see a path as to how we would derive conscious experience. However, the path cannot be seen by anyone, not even in principle. In past discussions, you have conceded this, but you wait for a "better science". You're in for a long wait, because no path can be seen in the candidates for an ultimate physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, etc.) either.
Bohm2 wrote: Single water molecules are not wet or liquidy.
But they are in the sense that we can see how they form a liquid.
Bohm2 wrote: But with mental stuff, this is exactly what panpsychists do. You won't find liquidity by looking at a single water molecule,
But you do find it.
Because you can see a way to derive the macroscopic from the micro with liquidity, or superconduction, or acidity, or whatever. No way can be seen at all for mental stuff (well, I can. but normal science can't). It's a nice story to say that it's because we're not smart enough, but the truth is otherwise.Bohm2 wrote: because it's understood that liquidity is a macroscopic property. So why should it be different with mental properties?
I don't see this, why was it inconceivable that Newtonian physics could explain macroscopic properties? A path could be seen, even then, I think. Was it the right path? No, but it was a resolvable question, even back then. They could see how they could possibly solve it, they had options. TO say it was "inconceivable" is not right, I think.Bohm2 wrote: Panpsychists try to claim that the mental is something totally different so it cannot possibly emerge from more fundamental stuff that isn't itself mental. But this isn't convincing as Chomsky ponts out:The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply hidden?In Nagel’s phrase, “we can see how liquidity is the logical result of the molecules ‘rolling around on each other’ at the microscopic level,” though “nothing comparable is to be expected in the case of neurons” and consciousness...It is built into the notion of emergence that emergence cannot be brute in the sense of there being no reason in the nature of things why the emerging thing is as it is.” This is Strawson’s No-Radical Emergence Thesis, from which he draws the panpsychic conclusion that “experiential reality cannot possibly emerge from wholly and utterly non-experiential reality.”...
It should be noted that the molecule-liquid example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turning into two gases by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in Hydrogen or Oxygen or other atoms. Furthermore, the whole matter of conceivability seems to be irrelevant, whether it is brought up in connection with the effects of motion that Newton and Locke found inconceivable, or the irreducible principles of chemistry, or mind-brain relations. There is something about the nature of Hydrogen and Oxygen “in virtue of which they are intrinsically suited to constituting water,” so the sciences discovered after long labors, providing reasons “in the nature of things why the emerging thing is as it is.”
What seemed “brute emergence” was assimilated into science as ordinary emergence—not, to be sure, of the liquidity variety, relying on conceivability. I see no strong reason why matters should necessarily be different in the case of experiential and nonexperiential reality, particularly given our ignorance of the latter, stressed from Newton and Locke to Priestley, developed by Russell, and arising again in recent discussion.
http://www.trulysuperb.com/wp-content/u ... y-2009.pdf
The question is more "can the way science is done, using physical laws, expressed through mathematics, conceivably figure out how liquids form?" the answer was yes in Newton's day. If Newton could figure out the planets, liquidity was with in his grasp. However, this same model, of using physical laws, can't do the job for experiences of qualia.
In any event, these debates, though maybe interesting, are all beside the point. I hope you can see that. Here's a new theory to deal with. it's not really panpsychism, or emergentism, or dualism, or materialism, it's something new. I'm hoping to deal with it, not vaguely related doctrines.
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