ya boy philip goff comin' thru

Obā-san · 2017-03-02 06:34:10

I maintain that there is a powerful simplicity argument in favour of panpsychism. The argument relies on a claim that has been defended by Bertrand Russell, Arthur Eddington and many others, namely that physical science doesn’t tell us what matter is, only what it does. The job of physics is to provide us with mathematical models that allow us to predict with great accuracy how matter will behave. This is incredibly useful information; it allows us to manipulate the world in extraordinary ways, leading to the technological advancements that have transformed our society beyond recognition. But it is one thing to know the behaviour of an electron and quite another to know its intrinsic nature: how the electron is, in and of itself. Physical science gives us rich information about the behaviour of matter but leaves us completely in the dark about its intrinsic nature.

In fact, the only thing we know about the intrinsic nature of matter is that some of it – the stuff in brains – involves experience. We now face a theoretical choice. We either suppose that the intrinsic nature of fundamental particles involves experience or we suppose that they have some entirely unknown intrinsic nature. On the former supposition, the nature of macroscopic things is continuous with the nature of microscopic things. The latter supposition leads us to complexity, discontinuity and mystery. The theoretical imperative to form as simple and unified a view as is consistent with the data leads us quite straightforwardly in the direction of panpsychism.

Imipolex G · 2017-03-02 07:04:46

discuss.

Sredni Vashtar · 2017-03-02 07:33:55

I like this idea.

Obā-san · 2017-03-02 15:30:46

Ya Boy Phil said:
This difficulty arising from the austerity of physical vocabulary is avoided if we have a correspondingly austere conception of physical reality. Dispositional essentialists believe that there is nothing more to possessing a physical property such as mass than being disposed to behave a certain way, in the case of mass
resisting acceleration and attracting other things with mass.Things on this view are not so much beingsas doings: if you understand what an electron does you know everything there is to know about its nature. Assuming dispositional essentialism, it is more plausible that physics can completely characterise the nature ofphysical entities; a mathematical model can capture what an electron does, and in doing so tellsus what it is.However, there are powerful arguments against the intelligibility of dispositional essentialism. Most discussed is the worry that attempts to characterise the nature of properties, under the assumption of dispositional essentialism, leadto vicious regress. For any given disposition X, we understand the nature of X only when we know what it’s manifestation, i.e. the property it gives rise to when manifested. For example, the manifestation of flammability is burning; we only know what flammability is when we know that burning is its manifestation. However, assuming dispositional essentialism the manifestation of any disposition X will be another disposition, call it ‘Y’ To know the nature of X we need to know the nature of Y. But we can only know the nature of Y by knowing the nature of itsmanifestation, which we will be another disposition, call it ‘Z’ To know the nature of Z we need to know the nature of its
manifestation, and so on ad infinitum. The buck is continually passed, and hence an adequate understanding of
the nature of any property is impossible, even for an omniscient being; in other words a dispositional essentialist world is unintelligible.

Russell records the moral of the story thus, ‘There are many possible ways of turning some things hitherto regardedas ‘real’ into mere laws concerning the other things. Obviously there must be a limit to this process, or else all the things in the world will merely be each other’s washing.’

ya boy philip goff comin' thru

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