Panpsychism
What? Sounds like a obscure cult? Do Panpsychists have a holy text? Could the condition be a recently diagnosed disease, for which a new wonder drug is being pitched on TV? I doubt you’d think any of those things. You’d be sensitive to the components of the word, pan and psyche. Likely you’d know that the term means, –mind is everywhere. Congratulate yourself on the correct answer.
We had a final discussion on the topic of “panpsychism” last night. There were three of us enjoying a tasty French pastry, with something to drink. The food, the company, and the conversation was satisfying. I’d like to think that old Socrates would have approved.
Panpsychism is an old idea. It is the notion that mind is fundamental to all of reality. We humans “know” what we mean by mind or consciousness as long as we do not attempt to define what we mean. The temptation that we all face is to arbitrarily draw a line in the chain-of-being at the level of humans, to say that everything below our line is bereft of mind as we understand it. That is dogs, cats, trees, grass, amoebae, rocks, electrons do not evince anything like self awareness. Our ancestors were not so quick to draw a line anywhere. They did believe in multiple gods. They thought that reality is so complicated that in fairness to their intuition, a whole panoply of gods and goddesses were referenced. Homer does a good job describing those days.
But we know better. We live in the age of “science” and it’s application, technology. We have a positivistic way of looking at the world. We are biased in language to what has a concrete, materialistic referent. We tend to be Materialists. We think that only matter, matters. For a majority of us reality is confined to what can be measured, the empirical. Cause and effect is what we care about. After all, what is the causal efficacy of a ghost?
To conclude here are some propositions for further thought on the matter:
- Is there a ghost in the machine?
- Perhaps every machine has it’s ghost….
- All is matter.
- All is mind.
- If no mind,–then no matter.
You will like this. John Fogerty is the best!
