Andy Clark - What is Panpsychism?

Panpsychism is the extreme claim that everything in the physical world—all subatomic particles-are in some sense 'conscious' or have a basic kind of 'proto-consciousness'. Why are an increasing number of leading philosophers taking panpsychism seriously? Something must be up. Could it be doubt that the scientific project to explain consciousness has failed?



Andy Clark is a professor of philosophy and Chair in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.Andy Clark is a professor of philosophy and Chair in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[FrankUnknown]

Man, Johnny Rotten has really mellowed out with age.

[RevealerOfNow]

Always a great reminder that even the smart people have no clue what's really going on.

[jjay]

I think the problem is materialism. Once you start with the priori that everything MUST FIT materialism then you're going down the rabbit hole of nonsense.

[Ludawig]

What I don't understand is why Clark equates panpsychism to a last resort if all experiments of consciousness emergence fail. Firstly, how could we even know if we've truly exhausted all methods to discover if consciousness is emergent, and secondly, even if panpsychism is true, it doesn't mean that the emergence of consciousness isn't true. For example, you could have hold an opinion of panpsychism where there's degrees to consciousness, in which when matter does form in a particular structure, more complex forms of consciousness emerge. In this example, both panpsychism and emergent forms of consciousness are true. So to Clark's logic, sadly it seems that he's shelved the concept of panpsychism because of his perspective that there's "no need to think about it that way", instead of simply letting the concept simmer in contemplation.

[metaRising]

I think panpsychism is a lot more than simply saying 'consciousness was here all along, ' and 'there is a little consciousness in everything.' That is a straw man which no panpsychist philosopher or scientist I know of would defend. There are all sorts of reasons to consider that consciousness may have a unique ontological significance.

[DangerMouse]

I think that Andy Clark did a better job than maybe anyone else I've seen at explaining a position on consciousness similar to Dan Dennett's. Brilliant insights. I love the conversations on this channel!

[markcounseling]

Kuhn is getting sharper, I appreciate him here.

[Steven-lgzk]

After reading some of the comments, I don't think people realize that Andy Clark & David Chalmers have co-authored a few papers together and that both are 2 of the 3 top philosophers of mind (along with Ned Block). They understand each others views and agree on certain things, they just don't agree on panpsychism

Andy Clark's big thing lately has been predictive processing theories. That the brain is a prediction machine, and makes predictions about what's going to happen internally as well as what's going to happen in it's environment. The important issue is that Andy Clark seems to think that experiences are something cognitive, and predictive processing theories of cognition can account for them. I agree with him that Panpsychism lacks explanatory power (in that it doesn't explain anything but instead asserts experience is fundamental), but I disagree with him that experience is cognitive

[Yzjoshuwave]

This leaves me wondering if what Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness” is in fact identical with the failure to adequately examine reductionism as it informs analytic perception. This guy is trying to reduce consciousness to the set of analytic statements about brain processes and physical nature, and trying to maintain objectivity without fully acknowledging how mysterious the immediacy of his own consciousness is. Expounding the full set of descriptive statements about how brain-processes work, even if it were possible, would never be instantaneously identical with consciousness, because it’s attempting to capture subjectivity as an objective fact by looking at a physical trace of it. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep looking at brain-processes: the descriptive correspondence between them is only going to grow deeper. But it will always be a correspondence that never steps into the final stage of pure identity.

[andreasplosky]

Great video. I love Clark's down to earth approach.

[IKEMENOsakaman]

Seeing this channel really reminds me of all the things I don't yet know

[alsindtube]

I don’t pretend to understand quantum physics, but I know that it’s revealed to us a few things that have remained born out under repeated experimentation: Non-locality, quantum entanglement, quantum jumping, and the hard problem of consciousness have shown us that the materialistic view of physics, and most importantly, of reality, is crumbling.

[rileyhoffman]

Okay. I'm still with Chalmers, though. Thanks for the insights.

[francesco]

Title is wrong, he doesnt go much ahead of just plain materialism. And he is a "philosopher" ...

[numericalcode]

The beginnings of introspection is the right place to look IMO.

[davidmoore]

I am by no means an expert, a philosopher, or even a scientist, just I lawyer, and everyone hates lawyers. However, I will take issue with one-point Mr. Clark makes. He is questioned on the argument that consciousness is analogous to biologic processes on the grounds that consciousness is fundamentally different. At about 2:30 he says that is only true if you start with your experience with the world. I have to think that the only place to start any science is with our experience with the world. That puts consciousness in the unique first position of all processes to be studied.

[thatpoetbobbymask]

Why do the trees grow so high
Why does the breeze blow on by
Why does the wave always crash to the shore
And why must the stone only stay where it lies

Well maybe the trees long to grow
And maybe the breeze loves to blow
And maybe the wave only wishes to wave
And the stone oh so patiently waits to be thrown

[simianbarcode]

Consciousness is only difficult for humans to explain because we are trying to study our level of it from the inside. Much like trying to lift up a rug while standing on it and thinking the rug must therefore be nailed down to the floor.


Of course it is more complex than that, and all metaphors eventually fall short, but complexity does not demand magic. Just as "life" is a wide spectrum of intersecting phenomena and cooperative processes, so too is consciousness a collection of things that work together to form a picture than seems greater than the sum of the parts. Each individual frame of a movie is a still image, and each individual tone of the soundtrack is meaningless by itself, but when played together in sequence, it gives us a convincing illusion of motion and meaning and story. "Movie magic" is similar to consciousness in the sense that it is a multi-layered illusion that adds up to something more than we would expect from the layers alone.

[sidefx]

It almost seems like Andy doesn't experience consciousness, as he seems unaware there is something going on aside from just reaction to stimulus.

[cabsrhere]

All is one thing. One thing experiencing itself. One thing with many heads. The heads come and go, but the thing that each of those heads is continues. Continues to experience itself. Continues to create new heads. The key is to realise that we are that one thing. Not this seemingly separate head. We are the one thing viewing ourself from the viewpoint of this head. Whether the primary substance of the one thing that we are is made of consciousness that can appear as matter in order to experience itself or whether it is made of matter that possesses the potential to create consciousness from within itself in order to experience itself, it makes no difference. It’s still all one thing. We are all one thing, always have been and always will be. There is nothing else that anything can be except the one thing that is. So have fun experiencing yourself as this head, meditate to drop the mind of this head and chill as yourself (the one thing that all is), love all as it’s all part of you and always will be. When you talk to others you’re literally talking to another part of yourself. The one thing that all is will continue to make new heads to keep on experiencing itself. We are that one thing.