Philip Goff presents the case for panpsychism and Keith Frankish that for illusionism in these online presentations to the Mind and Matter group at the University of Helsinki. Followed by a brief discussion between Philip and Keith. Recorded 13 January 2023.
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🐟 06. CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS:
Consciousness means “that which knows” or “the state of being aware”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). There is BOTH a localized knowing and a Universal Awareness, as explicated in the following paragraphs.
Higher species of animal life have sufficient cognitive ability to KNOW themselves and their environment, at least to a measurable degree. Just where consciousness objectively begins in the animal kingdom is a matter of contention but, judging purely by ethological means, it probably starts with vertebrates (at least the higher-order birds and fishes). Those metazoans which are evolutionarily lower than vertebrates do not possess much, if any, semblance of intellect, necessary for true knowledge, but operate purely by reflexive instincts. For instance, an insect or amphibian does not consciously decide to seek food but does so according to its base instincts, directed by its idiosyncratic genetic code. Even when a cockroach flees from danger, it is not experiencing the same kind of thoughts or feelings a human or other mammal would experience.
The brain is merely a conduit or TRANSDUCER of Universal Consciousness (i.e. Brahman), explaining why the more intelligent the animal, the more it can understand its own existence (or at least be aware of more of its environment – just see how amazingly-complex dolphin and whale behaviour can be, compared with other aquatic species), and the reason why it is asserted that a truly enlightened human must possess a far higher level of intelligence than the average person. The processing unit of a supercomputer must be far larger, more complex and more powerful than the processor in a pocket calculator. Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that the scale of discrete (localized) consciousness is dependent on the animal's brain capacity.
See Chapter 17 to understand the distinction between enlightenment and mere awakening.
Three STATES of awareness are experienced by humans and possibly all other species of mammals:
the waking state (“jāgrata”, in Sanskrit), dreaming (“svapna”, in Sanskrit), and deep-sleep (“suṣupti”, in Sanskrit). Beyond these three temporal states is the fourth “state” (“turīya” or “caturīya”, in Sanskrit). That is the unconditioned, eternal “state”, which underlies the other three.
The waking state is the LEAST real (that is to say the least permanent, or to put it another way, the farthest from the Necessary Ground of Existence, as explained towards the end of this chapter). The dream state is closer to our eternal nature, whilst dreamless deep-sleep is much more analogous to The Universal Self (“brahman”), as it is imbued with peace. Rather than being an absence of awareness, deep-sleep is an awareness of absence (that is, the absence of phenomenal, sensual experiences). So, in actual fact, the fourth state is not a state, but the Unconditioned Ground of Being, or to put it simply, YOU, the real self/Self, or Existence-Awareness-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit).
Perhaps the main purpose of dreams is so that we can understand that the waking-state is practically indistinguishable to the dream-state, and thereby come to see the ILLUSION of this ephemeral world. Both our waking-state experiences and our dream-state experiences occur solely within the mental faculties (refer to Chapter 04 for an elucidation of this phenomenon). If somebody in one of your dreams were to ask your dream-state character if the dream was real, you (playing the part of that character) would most likely say, “yes, of course this is real!” Similarly, if someone were to ask your waking-state character if this world is real, you would almost undoubtedly respond in kind.
An apt analogy for Universal Consciousness is the manner in which electricity powers a variety of appliances and gadgets, according to the use and COMPLEXITY of the said device. Electricity powers a washing machine in a very simple manner, to drive a large spindle for laundering clothes. However, the very same electrical power may be used to operate a computer to manifest an astonishing range of outputs, such as playing audiovisual tracks, communication tasks, and performing extremely advanced mathematical computations, depending on the computer's software and hardware. The more advanced/complex the device, the more complex its manifestation of the same electricity.
Using the aforementioned computer analogy: the brain is COMPARATIVELY equivalent to the computer hardware, deoxyribonucleic acid akin to the operating system working in conjunction with the memory, the intellect is equivalent to the processing unit, individuated consciousness is analogous to the software programme, whilst Universal Awareness is likened to the electricity which enlivens the entire computer system.
A person who is comatosed has lost any semblance of local consciousness, yet is being kept alive by the presence of Universal Consciousness.
The fact that many persons report out-of-body experiences, where consciousness departs from the gross body, may be evidence for the above.
So, then, following-on from the assertion made in the third paragraph, one could complain: “That's not fair – why can only a genius be enlightened?” (as defined in Chapter 17). The answer is: first of all, as stated above, every species of animal has its own level of intelligence on a wide-ranging scale. Therefore, a pig or a dog could (if possible) ask: “That's unfair – why can only a human being be enlightened?”
Secondly, it is INDEED a fact that life is unfair, because there is no “tit for tat” law of action and reaction, even if many supposedly-great religious preceptors have stated so. They said so because they were preaching to wicked miscreants who refused to quit their evil ways, and needed to be chastized in a forceful manner. It is not possible to speak gentle words to a rabid dog to prevent it from biting you.
There is evidence of Consciousness being a universal field, in SAVANT SYNDROME, a condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrate certain abilities far in excess of the norm, such as superhuman rapid mathematical calculation, mind-reading, blind-seeing, or astounding musical aptitude. Such behaviour suggests that there is a universal field (possibly in holographic form) from which one can access information. Even simple artistic inspiration could be attributed to this phenomenon. The great British singer-songwriter, Sir James Paul McCartney, one day woke with the complete tune of the song, “Yesterday”, in his mind, after hearing it in a dream. American composer, Paul Simon, had a similar experience when the chorus of his sublime masterpiece, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, simply popped into his head.
Cont…
Illusory? when qualia is my *only* reality?
I really liked Philip's presentation here. He tied a lot of arguments he's been talking about together in a really clear way. Specifically the point about the explanatory relationship he's going for with his strong emergentist panpsychism: not grounding but causation. I think this was a point of contention during the discussion/debate with richard brown and bernardo kastrup. Now I understand where he's coming from. I'm still inclined to think idealism is more parsimonious but I now understand why even strong emergent panpsychism is more parsimonious than dualism which would have a different kind of psycho-physical laws.
The last part of the discussion gets to a core question – you can adopt illusionism and still notice that it doesn't solve the mind-body problem. You can like philip maintain that thought and belief is grounded in consciousness (awareness might be a better term here). This is a position I've been thinking about for a while now and I believe something like this is also what Chomsky was talking about at the end of the mind chat interview.
folk introspection and thinking giving the speculative dogma of mass-energy arising as colors sounds etc
wheres hoffman
physicalism ended with the rigorous scientifically monitored thukdam in taipei 2020. its over.
this doesnt mean we should give up investigating the physical brain and especially bodily mechanisms associated with cognition. what it does mean is the institutionally ingrained scientism needs to be abandoned asap to allow for real science and broader investigation.
I have mentioned this to Keith before that illusionism has a slight definition clarity problem. Think of it this way – when I dream about skiing on Alps (say), the fact of me having a dream is not illusions itself. The brain did go through states for that dream. The subject of my dream i.e. skiing on Alps, is what can be called an illusion because I clearly was not skiing on Alps. When Keith says that a person's own sense of seeing red is an illusion, they understand it in the way like previous example as if they are told that the dream was an illusion itself. I have sensed that – it almost makes people angry – how dare you tell me – I sensed seeing red was an illusion.
Please not that a "red' apple simply is reflecting light in certain visible frequency range. For a person, say Alice, it creates certain specific state in her brain when she sees a "red' apple. Before someone tells her that it is called "red" in English, it is just an internal brain state. He has not explicitly labeled it yet. Her brain is then capable of storing that state, and recalling it next time she sees a "red" apple, comparing the resulting brain state with previously store state internally realizing it is same or similar and if interrogated declaring she is seeing an apple of "same" color. Note that she does not have to even label it in any linguistic way. She can just tell that it is same color the next time. And it is just that. Of course every new experience she has, results in a new state in the brain, her brain knows this is the first such state because it cannot find any stored state that matches it. That is it. I think of this as:
sensory input -> brain state -> classify it as first or no first state -> internal label -> if told giving linguistic label like "red".
next time:
same sensory input -> brain state -> detect that it is non first state -> identify internal "same" label -> internally remember that linguistically it is labelled as "red", if interrogated communicate one of the two linguistic labels either "same" or "red" – depending on the question.
Note that, in all phases her sensory organs and brain has to be working the same consistent way. If any of the phases do not work the same way in second go, the output may not be same.
Thinking that science can answer the question as to how the brain creates experience is a metaphysical option; you are assuming the metaphysical position of physicalism.
I recommend Keith researches parapsychology before publicly rubbishing it.
If the brain is just creating the illusion of experience, how am I experiencing that illusion?
Keith says we do have the experience, 'but does it really involve qualia?'. That's irrelevant to the hard problem. How does physicalism explain there is any experience at all? The content of experience is irrelevant.
Keith: 'Illusionism isn't a denial of consciousness; it's a denial of a certain account of consciousness.' The account of consciousness you need to deny is that it is real. You are caught in a circular contradictory argument.
Keith just assumes physicalism all the time, so yes, illusionism fits conceptually within the concept of physicalism; but it doesn't fit with reality.
Illusionism seems to just side step the problem