Psience Quest Interview No. 1: Titus Rivas

My only problem with this, is that some people think sentience goes a very long way down - even to the level of a single cell:

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

The evidence on that website resonated with me, because I have wondered for a long time if cells need some sort of intelligence (implying consciousness) just to exist. I mean as a former chemist, I find it extraordinary that so many reactive chemicals can exist close together and not  produce immense quantities of bi-products.  I mean for comparison, in a typical multi-step organic synthesis, the required intermediate has to be isolated and purified at every step. Now even if the enzymes work perfectly, all those reactive intermediates are still knocking around in a little bag of fluid, with plenty of scope for mistakes!

I mean, put another way, where exactly does the magic of life start?

I don't mean to discuss this in terms of the morality of eating sentient cells - more in terms of what life really is.

David

If you ask me, David, this simply amounts to the question of panpsychism versus dualism. 

See what I wrote a few posts ago about computation. Intelligence in the sense of computation does not at all imply consciousness. Just look at computers, but also at the stage(s) of non-conscious computation in perception. 

For me, the notion of sentient cells does not make sense. In my world view, sentience is a property of spiritual beings, not of bodies, let alone of body parts. Where there is sentience there must be a non-physical experient undergoing that sentience, as in substance dualism. Sentience is not a property of matter in my world view. 

For panpsychists it does make sense to postulate that all parts of organic life are accompanied by mind or proto-psychical elements. 

Also, what seems like intelligence may really be based on some kind of intelligent design, meaning that not the cells themselves are intelligent, but that there are specific, irreducible biological laws that are part of some intelligent creation by a higher being.

Thanks for your fast reply - I was afraid I might have left my comment too late!

If you ask me, David, this simply amounts to the question of panpsychism versus dualism. 

I certainly don't support panpsychism - what sense is there is claiming an electron can experience something when all electrons are identical according to QM? So dualism is far closer to my position.

See what I wrote a few posts ago about computation. Intelligence in the sense of computation does not at all imply consciousness. Just look at computers, but also at the stage(s) of non-conscious computation in perception. 

I tend to think talk of AI is mainly massive hype. It reminds me of something similar in the 1980's - when that AI bubble collapsed it started me on a journey away from materialism.

For me, the notion of sentient cells does not make sense. In my world view, sentience is a property of spiritual beings, not of bodies, let alone of body parts. Where there is sentience there must be a non-physical experient undergoing that sentience, as in substance dualism. Sentience is not a property of matter in my world view. 

For panpsychists it does make sense to postulate that all parts of organic life are accompanied by mind or proto-psychical elements. 

Also, what seems like intelligence may really be based on some kind of intelligent design, meaning that not the cells themselves are intelligent, but that there are specific, irreducible biological laws that are part of some intelligent creation by a higher being.

I'm certainly not averse to the idea on ID. Even fairly conventional biologists seem to be wavering:

https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Desire-Mo...0062651560

However, whether designed or evolved the result is a mechanism, not a mind.

Nevertheless there seems to be an incredible continuum - single cells, worms like C-elegans, embryos at various stages of development, tiny skin mites, fleas, slugs, snails, mammals other than us, humans!

I can't see any logical way to divide that lot up into those that do have non-physical component and those that do. I am tempted to say that they all have a non-physical component. For me, however that does not make me a panpsychist because all those things are definitely alive.

David

Thanks for your fast reply - I was afraid I might have left my comment too late!
I certainly don't support panpsychism - what sense is there is claiming an electron can experience something when all electrons are identical according to QM? So dualism is far closer to my position.


I tend to think talk of AI is mainly massive hype. It reminds me of something similar in the 1980's - when that AI bubble collapsed it started me on a journey away from materialism.
I'm certainly not averse to the idea on ID. Even fairly conventional biologists seem to be wavering:

https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Desire-Mo...0062651560

However, whether designed or evolved the result is a mechanism, not a mind.

Nevertheless there seems to be an incredible continuum - single cells, worms like C-elegans, embryos at various stages of development, tiny skin mites, fleas, slugs, snails, mammals other than us, humans!

I can't see any logical way to divide that lot up into those that do have non-physical component and those that do. I am tempted to say that they all have a non-physical component. For me, however that does not make me a panpsychist because all those things are definitely alive.

David

I meant that what seems to be intelligent and animate might sometimes simply be the result of some type of irreducible (created) biological laws, i.e. laws of life that can't be reduced to physics or chemistry. 

Mind you, I personally don't take intelligent design seriously as something that should replace evolution (I leave that to fundamentalist believers in some religion). The question for me is not if evolution is real, but if within evolution there are irreducible biological laws at play which are more than just physics and chemistry and any systemic/holistic mechanisms based on physics and chemistry. 

I can't see any logical way to divide that lot up into those that do have non-physical component and those that do. I am tempted to say that they all have a non-physical component. For me, however that do
es not make me a panpsychist because all those things are definitely alive.

Well, that is a type of panpsychism limited to life, I would say. For me, there is life without sentience, without consciousness, and in that sense inanimate life. For instance, I don't believe in incarnation into a human foetus before the nervous system has developed. So, in my view, the body of a foetus in the first weeks and months of pregnancy is not animated by a soul. (By the way, this makes abortion in the first phase of pregnancy morally sound, since there is no nervous system and therefore no interface between body and soul and nobody gets hurt - except maybe for the mother and her social circle.)

Please realize that even a vitalistic variant of panpsychism seems to exclude survival after death and reincarnation. If the body is animated by a soul from conception, how could an external soul ever reincarnate into a new body that is already occupied by the body's supposed own soul? Similarly, if body and mind belong together, we would expect the psyche to perish together with its body. Aristotle's hylopmorphism does not include personal or individual survival of any animals, not even of humans.

I meant that what seems to be intelligent and animate might sometimes simply be the result of some type of irreducible (created) biological laws, i.e. laws of life that can't be reduced to physics or chemistry. 

Mind you, I personally don't take intelligent design seriously as something that should replace evolution (I leave that to fundamentalist believers in some religion). The question for me is not if evolution is real, but if within evolution there are irreducible biological laws at play which are more than just physics and chemistry and any systemic/hostistic mechanisms based on physics and chemistry. 



Well, that is a type of panpsychism limited to life, I would say. For me, there is life without sentience, without consciousness, and in that sense inanimate life. For instance, I don't believe in incarnation into a human foetus before the nervous system has developed. So, in my view, the body of a foetus in the first weeks and months of pregnancy is not animated by a soul. (By the way, this makes abortion in the first phase of pregnancy morally sound, since there is no nervous system and therefore no interface between body and soul and nobody gets hurt - except maybe for the mother and her social circle.)

Please realize that even a vitalistic variant of panpsychism seems to exclude survival after death and reincarnation. If the body is animated by a soul from conception, how could an external soul ever reincarnate into a new body that is already occupied by the body's supposed own soul? Similarly, if body and mind belong together, we would expect the psyche to perish together with its body. Aristotle's hylopmorphism does not include personal or individual survival of any animals, not even of humans.

Titus,

Well you see, I am extremely cautious about modern science. If it doesn't really know the answer to a question, it provides a vague explanation instead. I don't think science really knows how even a single cell works - how the myriad chemical reactions get organised so that they do not interfere with each other. I suspect that you do need a vital force to explain this - heretical as this is.

The cellular level vitalistic entity (cell soul if you like) is obviously not the same as the soul of the whole organism. Indeed, there are people long dead who have left a cell-line in a flask that is still alive - such as the cells of the cancer that killed them!

It is a bit like the old TV set analogy for consciousness. Understanding the components of a TV set, doesn't explain the contents of the picture, and so Just because science can describe (some of) the components of a cell, doesn't mean it can explain how it behaves.

So I am happy to envisage the possibility that animals (including humans) have souls that separate from them when they die (and arrive at some point in pregnancy), while accepting that the cells themselves may be animated by tiny fragments of the same sort of non-material stuff that souls consist of.

I also think this illustrates that it is probably dangerous to apply too many logical deductions from the evidence, because we are in such unknown territory. Learned people thought vitalism was obvious, until Wöhler  managed to synthesise urea from totally inorganic starting materials.  However, I think vitalism is about the organisation and control of life - even in a single cell - not the manufacture of its chemical components by entirely different reactions!

I certainly do not believe in panpsychism.

David

Titus,

Well you see, I am extremely cautious about modern science. If it doesn't really know the answer to a question, it provides a vague explanation instead. I don't think science really knows how even a single cell works - how the myriad chemical reactions get organised so that they do not interfere with each other. I suspect that you do need a vital force to explain this - heretical as this is.

The cellular level vitalistic entity (cell soul if you like) is obviously not the same as the soul of the whole organism. Indeed, there are people long dead who have left a cell-line in a flask that is still alive - such as the cells of the cancer that killed them!

It is a bit like the old TV set analogy for consciousness. Understanding the components of a TV set, doesn't explain the contents of the picture, and so Just because science can describe (some of) the components of a cell, doesn't mean it can explain how it behaves.

So I am happy to envisage the possibility that animals (including humans) have souls that separate from them when they die (and arrive at some point in pregnancy), while accepting that the cells themselves may be animated by tiny fragments of the same sort of non-material stuff that souls consist of.

I also think this illustrates that it is probably dangerous to apply too many logical deductions from the evidence, because we are in such unknown territory. Learned people thought vitalism was obvious, until Wöhler  managed to synthesise urea from totally inorganic starting materials.  However, I think vitalism is about the organisation and control of life - even in a single cell - not the manufacture of its chemical components by entirely different reactions!

I certainly do not believe in panpsychism.

David

The problem I have with this, David, is that for me, consciousness is not composed of tiny fragments. It is the stream of subjectivity that belongs to a specific self. So without a self, in the sense of an experient, there can't be any consciousness. No stream of consciousness but no tiny fragments of consciousness either. Either someone (an experient) is having the conscious experience, or the conscious experience does not exist. 

Titus