Further down the rabbit hole...
What if our own subjectivity was the very thing preventing us from understanding consciousness? What if our ability to hold beliefs, learn, discover, make decisions, and understand were the very things keeping consciousness just out of our reach? Despite decades of scientific advancements in technology and eras of philosophical debate, we still have no conclusive idea what consciousness is or how it exists. Because of this, it seems, we desperately exhaust every angle brought forth as a possible step in the right direction to the point of giving us tunnel vision. Perhaps it is not our approaches to consciousness we need to reevaluate but the understanding of our current design of the world.
If I ask you to quantify the purpleness of a purple experience, you would ask me if I needed to see a doctor. This request does not make sense. What does it mean to quantify an experience? When Galileo proposed mathematics as being the accepted language of science, he was knowingly excluding consciousness since it cannot be explained quantitatively. He concluded that everything in our world can be accounted for in terms of mathematics, except conscious which is essentially a ‘quality-involving phenomenon’. Since consciousness cannot be qualitatively explained by this theory, it must be something else. Therefore, any agreed upon and accepted theory or laws cannot understandably include consciousness in its conclusion. “Yes, physical science has been incredibly successful. But it’s been successful precisely because it was designed to exclude consciousness. If Galileo were to time travel to the present day and hear about this problem of explaining consciousness in the terms of physical science, he’d say, “Of course, you can’t do that. I designed physical science to deal with quantities, not qualities.”” (Cook, 2020). So, if we keep this in mind we then need to adjust our understanding of what scientific laws and principles are telling us. They are defining what matter does, not what matter is. “Physics tells us, for example, that matter has mass and charge. These properties are completely defined in terms of behavior, things like attraction, repulsion, resistance to acceleration. Physics tells us absolutely nothing about what philosophers like to call the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of itself.” (Cook, 2020). So how do we alleviate this issue, that all we know about the world and how it works is built on a foundation of agreed upon laws and principles that are believed to be true based on proven mathematical evidence that intrinsically excludes consciousness? Enter Panpsychism. The idea that all things possess some mind-like quality and that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous. At its bare bones, all matter has the potential for consciousness. Although a seemingly wild idea, there have been several prominent endorsers of panpsychism throughout history. The great William James first approached this theory in Principles of Psychology, and later solidified his acceptance in Pluralistic Universe. Philosopher Bertrand Russell also showed increasing support for panpsychism addressing it in his 1927 book An Outline on Philosophy to his 1956 book Portraits from Memory. In 1996 philosopher David Chalmers presented his support in The Conscious Mind. As with any theory, there are critics who point out flaws such as the Not Testable or No Signs objection. There is no known way for testing or any evidence that shows or suggests the existence of lesser consciousness potential. “Yet it is hard to see what might actually count as valid evidence of mind. As Royce and Peirce have observed, simpler minds may appear to us as law-like phenomena. Analogy and rational thinking about metaphysical continuity are all we have to go on.” (Skrbina). However even with this objection, I find myself drawn the most to this idea and here is why…
Cook, Gareth. (2020, January 14). Does Consciousness Pervade the Universe? Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/ with Philosopher Philip Goff.
Skrbina, D. (n.d.). Panpsychism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Www.Iep.Utm.Edu. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.iep.utm.edu/panpsych/#SH2d
“Who are you?”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
My Thoughts…
I initially set out on this journey to try and better understand me. I was looking for answers in order to try and make sense of a world I was perceiving but didn’t understand. I wanted so bad to find even a hint as to what makes me me. After all the research and the long nights of no sleep followed by days of living off energy drinks, I have come to this understanding, though not without its holes….
If the only thing I can believe as truth is my awareness of my ability to be aware of my awareness (which I do), and there is also a subjective part of me I feel I have no control over since I cannot explain it in known scientific terms (which I do), that implies there is a part of me I seemingly do not have access to. A part I cannot ‘get to’ or ‘get at’ in order to understand it and be able to change/alter/fix it if something goes wrong. The only other things I cannot ‘get to’ or ‘get at’ are intrinsic properties, such gravity and time. This brings me two things. One is an instant feeling of fear that I don’t have complete control over my subjective experiences and two, a sense of relief that I don’t have complete control over my subjective experiences. While this may seem odd, the fact that I’ve gotten this far in figuring out where I stand is undeniably the proudest moment for me out of this entire project. And I may be wrong, panpsychism may not be the most promising path, but at least I have something I can begin to put my curiosity into.
One of the many things I love about philosophy is that no matter what side you are on, ultimately, we are all after the same thing. An answer. An indisputably undeniable truth we can hold about our subjectivity just like the undeniable truth we hold about our own awareness or consciousness. We have a subjective perception of the world. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it’s great, sometimes it causes us harm, but it is by far the most real, sure thing we have and to better understand it is to better understand ourselves. If subjectivity is what makes us ‘us’, then why the hell wouldn’t you want to try and solve it?