What is Panpsychism? | Rupert Sheldrake, Donald Hoffman, Phillip Goff, James Ladyman 

This means you’re not listening to scientists often enough :)

Then who does? And if we try to find it, are we wrong to do so? Is it better to let others do all the thinking for us? Can only certain people decide the paradigm for us?

Alchemy "Then who does [know the truth]?" Nobody! Although there were always individuals that were convinced about knowing the truth. Most such individuals are either highly religious (closed minded around a dogma they received without skepticism, usually when they were kids), highly ignorant (Dunning Krueger effect), having mental problems (some forms of paranoia come with a high degree of confidence in a well formed system of beliefs, although demonstrably false). "If we try to find [truth] are we wrong to do so?" Off course not. That’s what we all do all the time. To be able to manifest yourself in the world (to make decisions) you must first know the world and know yourself. So this is what Life always attempted to do: know the truth. Knowing ultimate truth is just an extension of that desire to know relative particular truths (like if it’s windy outside). Religious authorities in most cases were just human beings like the rest of us (enjoying status and power over others), so religions tended to veer towards politics and control. So it’s not a wonder that they developed injunctions like "Have faith and don’t seek!" (this is a very common phrase in my christian orthodox background), which are meant to make us trust in the Church’s truth without judging it or attempting to search for the truth ourselves. Well, some people just couldn’t believe in the Church’s "truth" and they started searching for the truth. They were persecuted off course (like Galileo and Giordano Bruno) but five centuries later we pretty much let all our life in the trust of science. We are born in hospitals, babies are raised with the help of the pediatrician’s supervision, we study scientific findings in school, we communicate using phones and telecommunications protocols, we cook our food in the microwave oven, we use all manner of electrical devices, computers run everything from production to waste management, we commute by cars and airplanes, we have dental work, surgeries, etc etc etc. *All these because we tried to find truth* "It is better to let others do all the thinking for us?" No. But this cannot be reduced to black or white answers. Some people are better at thinking for themselves while others aren’t. But this depends further on the particular subject. Einstein left the medical matters to be decided by the doctors, he didn’t treat himself according to his own thinking. Off course, there are things in which it is ultimately up to you, the doctor only recommends what would be best. "Can only certain people decide the paradigm for us?" Nope. We live in a fairly libertarian world (by at large), which means that nobody is forcing you to believe anything. If you get cancer and you believe in magic you go to the magician, while if you believe in science you go to the hospital. People might try to persuade you, but nobody will force you one way or another. But apart from this, the question also has very complicated aspects, ones to which there’s no simple answer. And the best answers that exist are to be found in the works of epistemologists and ethicists. But then again.. you might ask that question one more time: Can only certain people decide the paradigm for us? Well, this is our best bet so far and it works: we must trust the people who are specialized in *critical empirical formal* ways of going about stuff.

@@raresmircea I am not sure I agree.

Alchemy As long as it’s something that’s only concerning you, then you’re perfectly entitled to believe *anything* .

I have a VERY serious question...what does any of this do for our life except make it more confusing??....here is consciousness, the fact that a KING or Ruler has no more power than any other man or peasant...the fact that you have to pay someone else for the land and water that THEY say they own.....the fact that pharmaceuticals cost so much no one can afford them....that is consciousness....now what the hell are you going to do with all that consciousness? probably set around thing and having conversations and making videos that do nothing! That is unconsciousness!!

@@thetherorist9244 that is "conscious of", a function.

@@thetherorist9244 thats much too real and in your face type of thing..more fun to speculate on what is what...no one ever sells it 100% We 100% do know about poverty,inequality,not enough water ot go around,etc..too boring for most of us to discuss

what heroism? do you even know what you are saying? do you even realise how that sounds?

It sounds absolutely fine, a hero can have many attributes for many different people, for example someone who is brave enough to put their reputation on the line by stating their unpopular or strange beliefs, personally I think Rupert s has no real wisdom to share,

Wow..

Fantastic. Thank you for that.

Cute

There are some animals that are self-aware but not most as far as we have tested.

Poetry

Most people: Watch comedy movies and TikTok. Me: Reading the comment sections of external consciousness propositions.

That's really good that the very ridiculed Rupert Sheldrake of "pseudoscience" is in close relation of ideas to the great Donald Hoffman. I do enjoy both of their works. I've not read any of their books though. But Donald Hoffman is a pioneer for holographic principle and for panpsychism.

"I don't know what the truth is, I'm just a scientist." - Donald Hoffman ✊❤️🤜🤛🔥✌️👌🤯😁 If only more scientists felt this way and didn't push ideas so easily off into pseudoscience and material based atheism.

Well let's face it, some of us already see him that way. But yeah, assuming the human race survives, with civilisation and knowledge of history and ideas, he will probably be seen more like that in future.

I do hope so, I don't understand why Rupert Sheldrake is not respected. I think his theories are brilliant.

It is strange how blind we (humans) are to all of these other levels of conciseness.

Good point. Exploring a little: I think it's important to acknowledge that consciousness and reactivity are words with quite distinct meanings and that it's important to not confuse one with the other. Something, something the colony is conscious but its constituent elements merely reactive. After all, folks have built robots with much richer repertoires than individual ants and no one (afaik) insists the robots are conscious. From the colony perspective it seems reasonable to imagine a collective human consciousness... one addicted to fossil smoking, or perhaps humanity is still in a pre-conscious phase and knows not what it does.

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL AI might well be called artificial consciousness. Why artificial? Because we, rather than life, supply the power that animates it. Reactivity (the ability to field stimuli and respond thereto) is, although sometimes small, still an example of consciousness. Atomic particles, for instance, seem to display likes and dislikes.

@@kathyfausett9301 I'm thinking of prepending 'iawaft' (in a warm and friendly tone) to all of my excessively terse and ridiculously poetic comments which only ever approximate the thoughts I struggle to express. So, iawaft, a poem... Reactivity Re-imagined As Sol rises of a morning and directs his warming beams Earthward, they find Pebbly, a lonely pebble sleeping on a cold, cold beach. Pebbly awakens saying, "Ah, Sol, at last, good to see you again. Look, I expand a little to show my appreciation". Meanwhile, CL, a dissolute cloud of chlorine floats across Na, the desperately lonely sodium bed. Suddenly, in a flash of heat and light, a trillion shouts of, "I love you" and "I love you too" ring out. After they do it, a trillion newborn NaCLs muse among themselves, "What next"? At the moment Q, a speeding white ball, drives herself into the side of ole Blackie he emits a yelp of pain and takes off to hide in the corner pocket or, if feeling petulant, ricochets from the green rail, off across the flat green meadow for an adventure among his rainbow colored chums. -- Red Maybe you've read "Call of the Wild" and "The Jungle Book" and seen the film "Bambi" and perhaps dozens of its ilk... No wonder so many dogs are making excellent child surrogates. No wonder so many see themselves reflected in the eyes of robots. Consciousness and reactivity are words with quite distinct meanings. Cheers!

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL Here hear!

I recently made the same comment to a scientist about Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta already understands what science can only theorize. Without direct experience of Brahman I don't know if science will ever solve this riddle for the material world due to technological limitations.

It's more like they have realized the truth of it now but are reluctant to move away from materialism or not admin that they were wrong.

Most people: Watch comedy movies and TikTok. Me: Reading the comment sections of external consciousness propositions.

That's really good that the very ridiculed Rupert Sheldrake of "pseudoscience" is in close relation of ideas to the great Donald Hoffman. I do enjoy both of their works. I've not read any of their books though. But Donald Hoffman is a pioneer for holographic principle and for panpsychism.

"I don't know what the truth is, I'm just a scientist." - Donald Hoffman ✊❤️🤜🤛🔥✌️👌🤯😁 If only more scientists felt this way and didn't push ideas so easily off into pseudoscience and material based atheism.

Err..why is "atheism" material based?

It's not useful because even in a non-dual reality there is a definite illusion of duality. It is easier to explain things within the illusions of the dual FIRST and THEN go to full Advaita.

of course they do. it's so obivese

You have hit the nail on the head! The patriarchs (and occasional matriarch) of the old religion must be appeased if the heretical writings are to be saved from the fire ....

Same 🙂

He's just saying what every scientist will say, which is that all our models are only our best approximations for understanding reality based on the available data. They're still the best we could possibly have, and pretending otherwise (like distrusting evolution) is like saying "this theory can't be 100% proven so I'll believe in magic instead!" Scientists are people humble enough to know that we can't ever achieve total certainty about anything, but are actually giving their best attempt and providing us with usable, testable models as we work towards an ever-increasing understanding.

yep

@Grady Stein Oh, how nice, Grady. Why discuss when you can smear? Very classy. Have a nice weekend, and stay safe out there.

This is very profound! Maybe.. Water is also the physical expression of consciousness (beyond yet intrinsic to the physical world) - a similitude of the actual "nature" or composition of consciousness (something that, in my opinion is immeasurable... So using the term "composition" as a place holder of a term that refers to the immensity of something (or nothing 😊) that is infinite.) Just a thought that sparked from your thought! Thanks for sharing!

Spirit of indifference come out in the name of jesus. ☺

Not true, much of occultism is dualistic or panthiestic/relativistic. Also I would recommend against assuming Blatavaysky and related individuals of the period are worth trusting let alone quoting.

And then ask itself why.

Do you really believe your consciousness disappears or transforms? I can't agree that consciousness ever disappears.

@@dylanakent yes totally. when I'm asleep (and not dreaming) I have no consciousness

The brain is still active, just less so, when in non-REM sleep states. Although we use the term "unconscious" to refer to someone who is asleep, it doesn't necessarily follow that we are quite literally unconscious. In fact, sleep studies have shown people having conscious interactive experiences while technically asleep, such as passive auditory learning or sleep walking behaviors. Then there's the experiences of people in a coma who appear nearly or literally brain dead, but then later awoke with vibrant details of their conscious experience while technically comatose. Many of these experiences intersect with hearing or seeing literal events in their hospital room that we believed they shouldn't have been able to perceive.

@@chelsmaria surely all that shows is that 1. our bodies can function without consciousness (your examples of learning while asleep and also walking) and 2. consciousness continues to exist sometimes in situations where we don't expect it. Are you suggesting that we're conscious all the time but just forget that we were once we wake up?

@@singingphysics9416 It's possible that you were conscious, but you don't remember it. If insects are conscious, but they have no real episodic memory as we understand it, they are still conscious. It's also possible that the consciousness is merely different from consciousness you experience when awake. Finally, some serious Buddhists claim that consciousness does indeed persist during all phases of sleep. Look into B. Alan Wallace on the last point if you're interested.

Our brains can perceive other thought waves, and possibly those coming from other parallel universes that are close to ours. This is understood in the context of a "multiverse framework." The thoughts we tune into are determined by a condition of our current thinking habits. We could easily test this by using me as a PAINLESS guinea pig, which I would be willing to do. I would love to work on this model somewhere, but I have no resources and no access to help. For that matter, I have no desire at all on behalf of myself only. I do have desires for US that include me. Hope that makes a little sense.

Our brains

He's not wrong tho, consciousness is like orcs, it has layers.

It's different because you can quantitatively describe how a collection of atoms manifests those emergent properties. Not so consciousness. There is no possible quantitative description of what I subjectively experience when I taste chocolate. It is simply a conscious experience that can only be truly understood through the very experience of consciousness.

​ @nineleafclover Lets say that everything is conscious. And just for simplicity, lets say all particles/ building blocks are the same. They would still be experiencing their existence uniquely because of their different physical position in space and in relation to the other blocks. How could you ever explain this relation to a separate block without positioning it in the exact same space. You will never be able to experience/ understand the TRULY experience of another building block, only an aproximation...

Yep, that seams correct. Whatever it is that causes the DNA to give instructions to cells is the root of our consciousness and our emotions and all experiences are just a result of the most effective method that evolution has narrowed down. Considering that, What are the odds of us finding self recognizing conscious life on another planet and what would that indicate? Meh nothing I guess. Lol

Doesnt seem possible. Because what arranged said atoms? Evolution is more like a active force than a sequence of events. Observer is eternal

depends! it seems to make more sense to me that all experience operates on gradient scales which are determined/limited by our local sensory modalities. infinitely varying in capacity, strong and weak, but always in some form or another still experience. what we call loss of consciousness might simply be defining an inaccessibility by our standard modality of awareness and experience (alpha, occasionally theta) to conceptualize a different experiential state. the consciousness of a human probably isn't comparable to most other living things, and we couldn't hope to embody what experience most animal's awareness creates. different nervous systems, access to different realms of perception like mantis shrimp. our inability to conceptualize doesn't erase their own experience, though. (it's an important note that i'm extending the definition of consciousness to any form of awareness/experience) our brain likely doesn't or can't record the experience of a totally different electrochemical makeup - as sleep, unconsciousness, anesthesia - for our normal waking brain to recall in its own context. even take this simple example which isn't totally comparable ofc but is still useful to consider - when a person is feeling depressed, they might be able to recall a happy memory but their body chemistry won't reproduce the experience of happiness. so that doesn't erase the experience, on whatever part of the experiential spectrum it could have been, it just means that that component of it (in this case, the emotion of happiness) isn't currently accessible. i'm neutral on panpsychism, if the above ideas applied everywhere though then i'd probably be on board. the universe undoubtedly operates by a form of intelligent, interrelated movement/communication, but i don't know if it's unconscious computational intelligence or consciously, macrocosmically aware intelligence. tons of speculation in this area and i love keeping up with it, there's no pristine certainty beyond ourselves. and what's even beyond ourselves at all. time might tell. for now though, pure materialism covers mechanics and relations without a complete theory of those mechanics' essences/origins, as dualism covers essences while lacking empirical mechanics and relations.

Well under anesthesia conciousness isn't gone. It still their. But the bodies ability to maintain it is what's gone. But your awareness is still in your body. The body is a container of conciousness. It doesn't produce it. Body is damaged conciousness can't be maintained. A better question would be why people claim to go out of their bodies when experiencing a near death experience, or a psychedelic experience? Millions of claims of people leaving their body to the light, millions of claims that people felt their conciousness move through their body until it burst through into a hyper reality filled with highly complex geometry. Now that is strange. And can't be explained through material science

That could be like turning the current off an electromagnet and saying "If the magnetic field everywhere, why can I shut this one off?" Like yeah, the field is technically everywhere, but some physical systems allow much stronger regions of it.

like tears in the rain

Yes, and objective idealism states that things or rather beings exist as long as there is any perceiver of that thing.

Also, the proponents of emergence theories have no idea of what the term involution means: the infolding of certain aspects of consciousness in forms that are build by evolving beings. Emergence is a dual process.

@@WisdomTeachings Exactly, the emergentists will be committed to a form of dualism and thus inherit all the problems that come with it such as the interaction problem.

@@MonisticIdealism The way I see it is that the dual process is a cooperation between hierarchies of beings. It can be seen as spiritual light condensing and interacting with itself, hence, ultimately, a qualified monism. The duality is in the eye of the perceiver.

Panpsychism merely rebrands the hard problem as the combination problem - or rather, it moves the start line down the track but still before the goalpost - kinda like trying to explain the origin of life with panspermia

Hi Paul, thanks for you comment - interesting thoughts on Mary-Jane Rubenstein. You might find this interview with her interesting: iai.tv/video/mary-jane-rubenstein-in-depth-interview

@@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas The write up in the link above simply demonstrates my point: "Philosopher Mary-Jane Rubenstein discusses her work on two radical and subversive ideas: pantheism and the multiverse. She discusses the theological ideas that underpin physicists' ideas ..."

I'll add for anyone whose had odd things happen like being woken up to look at the clock at 3:33AM if they were doing the right kind of things the day before, I think about the only 'occult' phenomena that seems to hold solidly that I'm aware of is synchronicity and that seems to suggest recursion, ie. top-down and bottom up communication. This is part of why I think Hillary Putnam might have been on to something, that the China Brain objection was much more a clarifier than an objection, and it's part of where occult narratives - like Mark Stavish's Egregores - actually describe something that's been observed by people, eg. 19th century French occultists, who didn't have all the social hangups that we do now with the idea of emergent consciousness coagulating in actual higher canopies, tribe and city levels, etc. and this sort of thing gets lost because - in comparison to the scientific endeavor - this corner is seen as radioactive in terms of radical subjectivity, fraud, etc. and quite often that's true but this seems like a potential baby in the bathwater

Even if all of that is not 'exactly' correct as it might naively present there seems to be an underlying mechanic in place that looks so alike to this that it would still be fascinating for people to look more closely at this vector and see if it's something we could apply to things like game theory in politics, social policy, civics, etc - ie. huge asset to just ignore. It's the kind of thing I'd love to sell someone like Bret Weinstein on because it speaks to the sorts of problems he and Eric seem to want to solve (thinking of Game B and the like).

Exactly where and how do you see at macro-scale such brain-like wiring? It seemed to me that you see what you want to see...Even with this attitude, it is amazing that you easily put forward such analogies... Perhaps battle between good and evil, chaos and order, smoothness and clutter, light and darkness, US vs IRAN are better projections? Just joking... Kind of all the same b.s.t. isn't it?

mami can - wow, I’m a little surprised you’re even here! That said have a look at this and I suggest you do some research instead of imagining you understand - have a nice day... 🙏 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lJXG5zfTL2A.html

As above, so below.

Wow, deep!