I know panpsychism has been criticized in the past as just being a revision of mystic pantheism. But, i feel it is the only way to justify many concepts such as personal identity, a priori knowledge, and the link between physics and philosophy. The concept of “self” is destroyed. Body criterion, brain/mind criterion, memory criterion all have fallen into contradiction. (if you question that please note and i can give a detailed explanation, nearly deductive, to the falsehood of the former) I feel that the only way to explain awareness is through pansychism. The “mind” is ever present, and it is when the physical evolves to a state were it can make the sensory data, and store that data in neurons as memory, that it can become aware of its own existance. That is what we call “Life”, and “Death” is simply the physical absence of the perception needed to be aware of that existance. If this awareness was not somehow universal, how is it that the skeptic can not question the validity of mathmatics and geometry, a priori knowledge attainable without sensation, but can find everything else in existence to be subjective? Is it by chance that the only knowledge found objective is the same knowledge that is found without the sensation of the physical world? If physical bodies find subjective truth, why is the metaphysical universal? If we had different mental bodies, than all truth, even knowledge as simple as 2+2=4, could be found as just non objective personal knowledge. This is not the case. The fact that the mental is objective leads me to believe that the mind is collective. Material monism can attack this position, but i find this easy to dispose since denying the mental destroys free will. And i find free will, or more acurately antibehaviorism, to be a self evident truth since there is no stimulus prompting me to write the very paper i am writting now. The only way i can make this all work is through panpsychism. Thoughts?
Where have you been all my life?
I got your back, ABSA.
Check out my freewill thread for my views on Panpychism
asbelowsoabove:
you might really like D’Alembert’s Dream by Denis Diderot. The ideas expounded in that text are very close to your own.
Why is this not the widely exepted view of modern philosophy? We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively; bodies are simply sensory vessels that allow us, the collective awareness, to experience the physical world. This awareness does not move in and out of bodies, it is present in everything, living and non living (I think it is more accurate to say animate and inanimate). The chair I sit in know has just as much consciousness as I, it only lack the sensory input needed to be aware of anything, including it’s own existence. If in fact matter is simply energy condensed to a slow vibration, as physics implies through string theory, is this so implausible? If in the physical realm there is no fundamental difference between me and the chair I sit in, why is it strange to think the same regarding the metaphysical? The reason is that this destroys are concept of life and death. As I said before, “life†begins when the physical develops to a point wear sensation and perceptions are possible. You then create this imaginative concept of “selfâ€. This concept does not follow logic. When “death†is seen as simply awareness losing its ability to perceive itself in the physical realm, existence is continual. Due to the fact that we are confined to subjective awareness by our human bodies, it is hard to think about a common awareness. Some may argue that memories prove I occupy a single body. This is false. Memories, unlike the mind/consciousness, are physical. Our bodies store sensory information in the brain that can be called upon to give the effect of continuity and influence decision making. The awareness can not store information from the physical world since it is not physical. Consciousness needs the senses and the memory capacity of the brain to experience the physical world. Some may counter this premise stating, “If we are all one mind, why do we have the perception of singularity?†Just because I do not see, hear, and feel as my friend does not mean we are separate mental bodies. Take my hand for example. My pinky and thumb are entirely different. If I prick my thumb, my pinky does not feel the sting, and only when rubbed together would they find reason to believe in the existence of the other. Yet are they not of the same body? The distinction between the physical and mental is in the homogeny of awareness, and as I have said before, this explains the incontrovertible nature of universally obtainable a priori knowledge. Nature was not created with benevolence and justice as mainstream religion implies. The world is chaotic, but what governs even the most wild of natural phenomenon? Mathematics, geometry, and physics. Why is a circle’s circumference always the diameter of the circle times 3.14? I can imagine that 4.6 or 2.4 would work, but it does not. Why does The Golden Ratio, Phi to 1, appear with such frequency in nature. Limb division, nautilus spirals, and light spectra all follow this ratio. If every sensory perception can be seen as relative, why are these truths found restricted? It is because these are the laws that hold true in both the physical and mental realms. They are the only absolute truths, and they can be derived with no sensory perception. This signifies the existence of something else, which we call mind or awareness, and the fact that the knowledge derived through this medium is exactly the same for all humanity, and cannot be found false by any account, proves to me that there is a mind and it is universal.
Alright Maynard 
Haha, I was wondering when someone would catch the Bill Hicks quote!
Srry i just couldnt resist.
–asbelowsoabove
this is exactly the point of d’Alembert’s Dream (Diderot). an enlightenment thinker. its not widely accepted because no philosophy outside of economics/politics seems to be all that popular. your philosophy, or panpsychism, is a direct threat to christianity. well, not REAL christianity, but the leg of christianity that aims towards controlling people.