Panpsychism Debunked

Here is the link to a commentary by Mark Mahan 

http://futureandcosmos.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-dismal-scenario-called-panpsychism.html

Mark Mahan is correct.  Panpsychism is an incorrect theory of consciousness.  I agree with his opening statement, and with his ending conclusion, but with little else in between.

 He says in his opening, “Why is it that some particular arrangement of matter would cause Mind (a totally different type of thing) to emerge from the matter in a brain? To many that seems no more plausible than the idea that some particular arrangement of crystals in a rock might cause the rock to gush out blood.”

 Very well.  He has discredited physicalism, and then posed the problem that panpsychism seeks to solve.

 Among some of the theories in vogue, he mentions, “the idea that the brain doesn't actually produce our minds, but somehow taps into some great external reality that is the source of our minds, perhaps in a way rather similar to how a television set receives TV signals, or how a smartphone connects with the internet.”

 Aha.  Idealism, a theory which is quite consistent with some spiritual doctrines, including the one I favor.

The remainder of his commentary is readable, but very subject to a physicalist critique in several respects.  I say this with the acknowledgment that Mahan is very accomplished, and has done a great deal of good as far as pointing out the fatal flaws in physicalism.  Even so, one might cringe at some of the points he makes in support of his argument.  I find that this is rather a common trait among intelligent people.  An example of a false argument in favor of a true statement is to say that we know the world is round because if it were flat, birds would fly away and never return.  The world is indeed a globe, but there are better arguments in support of that fact.

The panpsychist would point out that Mahan’s arguments against panpsychism are invalid because they can be overcome by the theory of “emergent phenomena.”  That theory would allow consciousness to emerge from matter if two conditions were met:  (1) if atoms and their constituents contain building blocks of consciousness, and (2) as those blocks become organized, they produce something greater than the sum of their parts.

This rebuttal by the panpsychist works against Mahan’s argument, because Mahan seems to conceive of panpsychism as a theory that each atom (or other basic constituent) has a (more or less) fully formed consciousness, complete with willful purpose.  This would be analogous to defining a brick as a small house.

A strong argument can be made for panpsychism based on the premise that each particle contains an “atom” of consciousness, but the atoms must combine into molecules of consciousness, and thence upward along the complexity scale of organelle, organism and so forth, to produce the finished product, that is, consciousness, along with its array of attendant characteristics (thought, feeling, perception etc).

This “strong argument” is, however, physicalist in nature, and physicalism can be separately debunked no matter how strong the panpsychist argument may seem at first.

Panpsychism is a bottom-to-top explanation of consciousness, just as the Standard Model of Particle Physics is also a bottom-to-top explanation of the universe.  Such an avenue of explanation would be like explaining a house beginning with a brick, and then trying to explain how the bricks form themselves into a house.  One could devise a very convincing explanation based on random chance, but the explanation requires endless aggregations of ever-higher orders of random multi-verses.  Such a model of physicalism is unwieldy at best, and expands forever toward the eventual point of absurdity.  Such a model is unnecessary to explain the universe.

A better avenue of approach is to regard the house (the universe) as having been built according to a design and a purpose.  The purpose is human habitation, and the designer has in mind that very purpose, and is also the master of his craft.  Consciousness exists because its creator is conscious.  Life exists because he is alive.  Our free will exists because he exercises divine free will.

Again, my purpose here is not to diminish Mahan’s stature as an accomplished debunker of physicalism.  It is simply to try to improve on his argument against panpsychism, and by extension, the argument against physicalism.

Being right is not enough.

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