Daemon

What's the rationale for that distinction then?

Have you discussed this with John Searle??

The mechanisms responsible developed in your foetus until at some moment you were able to feel something. We can see that the process of development o...

Thanks Bert1. Lots to think about there. I'm going to read up a bit about Emergentism, and I'll come back to you about your ideas. As you said, this i...

I'm conscious that we are encouraged to apply the Principle of Charity in discussions like this. We should "interpret a speaker's statements in the mo...

That's no better. "Comparable" is too vague in meaning. It can be defined as "able to be likened to another" but also as "of equivalent quality". An e...

In my view there is still a "self", but not the conscious experiencing kind.

That's no way to achieve clarity is it? "The Mars Rover "kind of" emulates human thought".

As I mentioned, nature has had billions of years on billions of stars to hit on something like that. It happens by chance. Because it can. There isn't...

Chemotaxis can be explained. Here's the explanation: The central mechanism of signal transduction involves two families of proteins found in microorga...

But why should that be necessary? What does it add to our understanding? We can already explain how a bacterium swims up a chemical gradient in exhaus...

Emulate: match or surpass (a person or achievement), typically by imitation. "most rulers wished to emulate Alexander the Great" Computing reproduce t...

This is what a family member is doing: You mean silicon like in a computer?

It's not because it doesn't speak that I say a bacterium doesn't think. I say it because we can fully explain its behaviour, which looks like consciou...

No! The individuation of the organism creates one point of view. There is no external observer! And no reason to posit one!

No. The cell wall (or something about the cell) creates the distinction between organism and environment, it creates a potential locus for consciousne...

Have you read Searle's "Mind, a Brief Introduction"? Have a look at the introduction here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5G_iBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT11&lp...

That's the second time you've used this rather tired metaphor/straw man. How about explaining what you mean in plain language.

The self minus thoughts. This relates to a different idea I've been thinking about. A single celled organism has no thoughts, but it does have a "self...

Translation is one of my fields of expertise, in that I have worked as a translator (using a "Computer Assisted Translation" or CAT tool) for 20 years...

Information is a measure, not a cause.

I don't. I could say "consciousness sometimes feels heavy so maybe it's a property of gravity". Just nonsense, sorry.

But natural selection (I'll call it Chance) had billions of years to think of it (and billions of stars and planets). And Chance had already thought o...

My target is not those who believe that consciousness in insects is panpsychism.

Ubiquitous:present, appearing, or found everywhere.

My point is that your analogy doesn't stand up. Panpsychism is the belief that every thing has an internal mental aspect. If you say consciousness is ...

No we bloody aren't! Insects are individual organisms, if they are conscious then it's them as individuals that are conscious, not the whole universe.

But they are all living. And non-biological items aren't.

Why do you think they do?

Again, what's the relevance to the current discussion?

But what's the relevance to panpsychism?

But you think of a single-celled bacteria as being alive.

A bacterium can swim towards a desirable chemical, say a food source. To do this it needs to able to tell whether the concentration of the chemical is...

A bacterium is a single-celled organism which I regard as being alive. We know an astounding amount about consciousness. We know enough about the biol...

Well, my idea is that there is something special about biological entities, in that they are separated from their environment. That's what I mean when...

No, because:

What gets panpsychism out of the realm of pure fantasy?

There are no particles.

So, no motivation!

I don't follow your reasoning. Just because life isn't easy to pinpoint doesn't mean it's everywhere. In any case my idea is that life can be pinpoint...

I'm really wondering more about the motivation for putting consciousness everywhere, rather than where we actually have evidence for it. My own theory...

Hi Bert1, Thanks for the descriptions of the various panpsychisms. I think I have the same problem with all the versions, and additional problems with...

So by "we" do you mean panpsychists?

I wonder what the motivation is? I mean, I look around at the world, and I see that some things are conscious, you and me, my dog, and I see that the ...

Well I've already given you one killer reason above, which is actually quite deep and fascinating if you will only engage with it. A computer can't be...

Still sounds mad I'm afraid, or just incorrect: the matter in the computer was created in the big bang, same as the matter in our grey matter.

Ok, I guess I agree with that, but it doesn't make a difference to the discussion about computer consciousness.

That sounds mad. What do you mean?

Maybe so, but specific regions of the brain are dedicated to specific aspects of consciousness. Mark Solms points to a large amount of evidence, from ...