Category: Sentience in Ideas
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Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
“—we need both the science and the philosophy to get a theory of consciousness. The science gives us correlations between brain activity and experience. We then have to work out the best philosophical theory that explains those correlations. In my view, the only theory that holds up to scrutiny is panpsychism. When I studied philosophy,…
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Collective intelligence, ants and the binding problem
A single neuron in the human brain can respond only to what the neurons connected to it are doing, but all of them together can be Immanuel Kant. Read more The idea of a collective consciousness (Or Anthill) is pretty simple: instead of cells you have small sentient animal that make up a larger creature.…
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If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious
If you’re a materialist, you probably think that rabbits are conscious. And you ought to think that. After all, rabbits are a lot like us, biologically and neurophysiologically. If you’re a materialist, you probably also think that conscious experience would be present in a wide range of naturally-evolved alien beings behaviorally very similar to us…
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Consciousness and the binding-problem
While panpsychism sounds crazy, it is actually a highly viable theory of consciousness, as long as it is distinguished from animism: the view that everything is alive and therefore possesses agency, intentionality, thoughts, emotions, etc. Elementary particles almost certainly are not endowed any of these attributes, but according to (my take on) panpsychism, they have…
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The Legend of Simurgh
The Simurgh features strongly in Persian mythology and a number of the great epic poems of Persian literature. It is said to be a mixture of peacock, griffon and lion symbolises the union of heaven and earth. In his epic poem The Conference of the Birds, Fariduddin Attar describes how millions of birds went in…