Interesting find on the "default application loop," but it hardly debunks panpsychism. Panpsychism suggests that all matter has proto-conscious traits, not just brain-like consciousness. The brain patterns we're identifying with fMRI are just how human consciousness manifests, based on our specific neural setups. This doesn't necessarily exclude other forms of consciousness inherent in different forms of matter, which might be beyond our current detection capabilities. Let's not conflate our present understanding of human consciousness with the broader, philosophical nature of consciousness itself.

>Panpsychism suggests that all matter has proto-conscious traits, not just brain-like consciousness.

I think a cornerstone of panpsychism is that none of the concepts presently available to any physicalist explanation is sufficient or on the horizon, therefore it is necessary to entertain such ideas as a universe-spanning proto-consciousness.

I find this position to be pre-emptive, not in the spirit of scientific open mindedness, not compatible with any research program that could prove or disprove it, and completely emptyhanded in any conversation that seeks to understand consciousness in functional or structural terms as well as completely emptyhanded in even beginning to explain the combination problem.

Until it gets its act together and gets out of alpha-testing, I fault pansychism proponents for bringing a "teach the controversy" approach to a table of scientific investigation at which they are yet to have earned a seat.

I mean, experiments should be able to test this? Maybe in the future someone will find a way to adapt the double slit experiment to test for 'choice' on a fundamental particle level. "Can a particle choose for itself?"

That's a very creative potential experiment, and I do hope some such experiments can be proposed!

However, my understanding of the double slit experiment is that the "observer" in the experiment means something more like measurer or measurability, which can be done by devices. And it shouldn't be construed as being deeply tied to consciousness in philosophically important sense.

My understanding was 'measuring is touching' with light, imparting energy into the delicate system, and no measurement can be done at that scale (thanks to the rules of light frequency/energy) that can both detect it and be weak enough to not bother the result.

So when I say like the double slit needs to be adapted, it would need to account for such. It would need to test for 'choice' from a particle... somehow...

Or... maybe randomness as a concept is flawed. Maybe randomness === '(some level of informed?) choice' from particles we are not privy too. not some 'hidden variable' but a dynamic ability to 'choose'?

How would we prove random is random and not a choice/decision we can't see or understand?

Supposedly Bell's inequality means there are no hidden variables (or implies even weirder things) ?

I am not talking about 'hidden variables'. More like... 'hidden (unfound as of yet) functions'...

My problem with panpsychism is that its scientifically vacuous. A brain is conscious in an obvious, observable way. An equivalent amount of sand is not. We need an account of why the brain behaves the way that it does, but panpsychism furnishes no such account and the content of that accounting would basically be neuroscience as we know it, including all the philosophical difficulties of why things feel like things at all (this, I feel, is also vacuous, but a different question). Thus panpsychism is of no help at all for explaining anything so what precisely is the point of believing it?

I also think that once you prod for explanations of combination, or why consciousness seems to be deeply associated with a specific kind of structural function and complexity rather than such things as size and mass, panyschist answers about where consciousness "shows up" just start to more closely approximate ordinary consciousness research we are already doing.

Panpsychism is as necessary to explain consciousness. Why can't it (and qualia) just be emergent behaviors?

We might as well posit pancandleness in order to explain the candleness of candles. Without such a thing, why call a candle a candle? It would merely be just a temporary arrangement of molecules.

Being a candle is different than the sensation that one is a candle. Indeed, yes, i think it's reasonable to posit, that, if such a sensation exists, then all things would feel it in some way, depending on how much of a candle you are.

My point is this: we put labels on things, but it doesn't mean there isn't some independent thing we can point to that causes it to be that thing. There is no candleness that imbues an object to make it a candle.

Likewise, a feeling of red isn't due to some mysterious redness. It is just the label we put on a particular configuration of neural activation. No need to make it mysterious until someone shows that more is required to explain it.

> Likewise, a feeling of red isn't due to some mysterious redness. It is just the label we put on a particular configuration of neural activation. No need to make it mysterious until someone shows that more is required to explain it.

Well... that's the problem no one can 'show' it, but we all know the feeling of 'redness'(mysterious or not, caused by neural activations alone or not) is still fundamentally different from the knowledge that red light is shining on another object. And that's the problem.

I mean, maybe you don't experience this feeling and I'm truly talking to an automaton (hello!). But I can't honestly take these claims seriously when it's extremely obvious to me that the feeling of seeing red is fundamentally different from the pure information content that red light is shining on my face. It's a fundamental feeling of sensation that is simply inexplicable.

Why does red feel anything at all. Why is there a conscious (whatever that even is) experience of red. Wouldn't the universe work fine if it's all just automata (however intelligent). Why is there a feeling of existence at all. Is that necessary for the universe. Why? Waving these questions away as 'not mysterious' is either due to laziness or a fundamental difference in experience (which would be fascinating on its own, but I have no idea how to approach methodologicaly).

1. You’re definitely still conscious when you’re asleep — dreams are certainly conscious experiences

2. We don’t actually know what the internal subjective state of apparently-unconscious people are e.g. in drug-induced states

Even if all of that were different, it still is not a disproof of panpsychism.

That's a new use of the word "conscious" for me. How do you personally define consciousness?

Internal subjective experience. To “have” a point of view, not in the argumentative/opinion sense but in the “there is experience being experienced” sense.

What does it mean to have a point of view? Does a kalman filter qualify? Why not?

I’ve never been a Kalman filter so I have no idea.

The thing that is inscrutable to me by virtue of not having been a Kalman filter myself is what I’m referring to as “point of view.”

I don’t really know that anything or anyone at all is conscious (except for me), but it sure seems like lots of other things are, based on the way they behave.

So for some things, you are happy to watch the way they behave and assume they have this magical property of consciousness like yourself, but for a kalman filter, you'd have to be one to determine if it has a point of view?

You still haven't said what a point of view is in this context, if you can have it, and some other unspecified beings have it but you can't say upfront if a kalman filter has it.

There’s nothing incoherent here. Whether talking about a human, a dog, or a Kalman filter, the only mechanism by which I can infer (not fully determine) whether it’s conscious is by observing its behavior. Some things behave in ways that look more conscious than other things. Motor control, goal-seeking behavior, and doing things that imply self-awareness all point in the “probably conscious” direction, but none is dispositive. Other humans certainly give the appearance of being conscious while Kalman filters don’t appear that way. But you can imagine a totally believable robot (a la Westworld) that behaves outwardly identical to a conscious human but is not conscious. We don’t know enough about consciousness to determine whether it actually is or actually isn’t, which also applies to the Kalman filter question: it doesn’t appear to be conscious (unlike the robot) but we don’t have a way to determine whether it is (like the robot).

I’ve said multiple times what a point of view is, I think you’re just too caught up in argumentation to read the text in front of you.

You agree that you have experiences, correct? Your ability to experience experiences is what it means to have a POV. The name of that characteristic is “consciousness.”

It is probably the case that some objects experience experiences (like you presumably do and I definitely do), and other objects do not.

> and I definitely do

Prove it.

Are you trying to make my argument for me? Because that's my argument.

No I get the impression you really want to say qualia, but don't want the backlash.

What would the backlash be? Has “qualia” fallen out of favor among people who think being asleep == not being conscious? Frankly given that opening confusion I am surprised you’ve heard the word qualia.

Qualia is magical thinking. It implicitly assumes a Cartesian theater, and leads to infinite regress.

And yet here I am having continuous, direct interaction with subjective experience and yet I have zero evidence for a Cartesian theatre… simply claiming one implies the other is not the same as proving it.

> with subjective experience

So you claim. I can prompt an LLM to do the same.

Correct, you have no way to verify my claims, which is exactly my argument. Thanks!

It's like playing chess with a pigeon. My fault really.

Haha, indeed :)

Right. If we weren't conscious we wouldn't know we had slept. It is an experience of nothingness.

> If we weren't conscious we wouldn't know we had slept.

How do you figure? It’s not uncommon to fall asleep, wake up, and be convinced that you never fell asleep even when people next to you tell you that you were unresponsive, snoring, talking in your sleep, etc.

There is a difference between what is experienced in the mind and consciousness. What you're describing are aspects of emptiness (and content or lack of content) as experienced by the mind waking/dreaming/deepsleep. But consciousness / Atman is always aware and awake.

>You’re definitely still conscious when you’re asleep — dreams are certainly conscious experiences

I would say yes and no. I think we all feel there's something different about wakeful consciousness vs sleeping consciousness, and also, it seems that we are indeed sometimes "out cold" and that something like an "activation loop" (new term to me) might be necessary to play a role in distinguishing these various states.

> I would say yes and no.

Why would you say that? Why can't you say "I don't fully agree".

My own concern is more about how Dualists can justify their metaphysics, and where does consciousness stops when considering less complex systems than humans. (Also aggregations of systems, like a country !)