Panpsychism in the West – David Skrbina
(2017 Revised Edition)
It has
been almost 4 years since I first began posting reviews of the books I read on
this blog, RXTT’s Book Journey.
One of the most gratifying and unexpected outcomes of this project has
been the ability to correspond with some of the authors of the books I
read. It always thrills me when they
reply to my communications. One of the
many who I have had a chance to correspond with has been mathematician,
educator, and cyberpunk O.G. Rudy Rucker.
I always make sure to ask these authors if they can suggest any reading
recommendations, and Rudy Rucker told me that this book, Panpsychism in the
West, was one to check out, as he had recently enjoyed it very much. The name David Skrbina was familiar to me
based on various references to him and his writing in other books I read. It was awesome to have such a great
recommendation, and greatly appreciated.
This book
details the development, discussion, history, and possibilities of the
philosophical idea called Panpsychism.
This idea suggests that the entity we call Mind is inherent in all of
existence, and that this should affect everything about how we see ourselves,
life, and the whole of existence. Many
of the Greek philosophers, who first pondered the reality of the world around
us, our bodies, and our minds, came to the conclusion that Mind, consciousness
itself, was an underlying part of everything that exists. One of the arguments for this was that human
beings feel they have a mind separate from the nuts-and-bolts physicality of
their brain. However, Humans are created
from the very same stuff as everything else, and because of this our “Minds”
cannot be a special occurrence. Some
form of “Mind” must exist in any and all life, and possibly into inanimate
matter we deem to be not alive, perhaps even to the basic building blocks of
matter. They saw the human body as an
aggregate of its many parts, and because of this, the parts themselves must
have had some sort of “Mind”, just as the bigger systems around us, the
atmosphere, the water cycle, the Earth itself, must also have a “Mind”
constituent.
Later
Greek philosophers would turn from this idea and head towards a mechanistic and
non-spiritual perception of the Universe around us. These ideas led to the Materialist universe
in which modern humans exist. We are
told that the Mind is either purely a god-given trait solely found in Humans,
or that the Mind sprang up only in Humans because we were the only ones to have
a complex enough nervous structure and
brain to achieve this. These human-centered
objections to panpsychism have been put forth by philosophers and scientists throughout
human history. They only serve to point out
the inherent bias among thinkers who ascribe all experience value based on
their personal state, that of being a human on Earth. They demean the experiences of animals,
plants, and even rocks as purely mechanistic, even as they aggrandize the human
experience. This seems a contradiction
to me.
Once the
mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton and classical physics began to influence
the world, philosophers sought to discredit the idea of panpsychism by
exclaiming that it was unscientific, in that there was no empirical way to test
whether a rock or a tree has a Mind. The
blind-spot in their arguments is that, as of today, there is no way to
empirically prove that a human has a Mind!
If it cannot be proven to exist in us, how can they be so sure it does
not exist in the world around us? Too
many people run with this argument and fail to understand that panpsychism is
not a scientific idea, but a philosophical one.
Empirical science can analyze a brain, the neurons and axions that make
up the physical brain, and the various blood vessels that nourish and clean the
brain, but they cannot in any way analyze the Mind. Psychologists have tried, with varying
degrees of failure, to analyze Mind as separate from the physical brain. Psychiatrists try to utilize medicines and
chemicals to force the physical brain into adjusting the process of the
non-physical Mind. It is a very
confusing state of affairs.
David
Skrbina has done a great job of compiling not only the various supporting ideas
and players throughout human western culture to discuss panpsychism, but also
of the many philosophers and scientists who sought to deny panpsychism. He explains how they came to their negations,
and the ways in which they misunderstood the basic concept of panpsychism. Many philosophers would push these ideas only
to negate them later on in life. Yet
others, people who decried the possibility of panpsychism, came around in their
later years and admitted that there is no way to discount the idea. How their ideas went on to influence those that
followed, and how the possibilities inherent in panpsychism would change the
entire world-view of the whole of humanity is a focus of the later part of this
book.
Philosophy
as a field of study for me is very frustrating.
I find it hard to read the conclusions and assertions of philosophers
whose base assumptions are inherently opposed to how I see the world around
me. It is very hard to argue with a dead
philosopher! I love to know the history
of human thought and the development of our ideas on ourselves, but so much of
it is purely fantasy, conceptualized reactions to embedded presumptions. I feel that, as a basis of thoughtful
exploration, it is much more valuable and realistic to assume that, just as we
are part of the Universe, and have a level of awareness we call Mind, that
every other constituent part of the Universe, both smaller and bigger than the
cellular aggregate we call a human being also shares in this noetic quality. It is impossible to draw a line of demarcation
where Mind exists and then where it does not.
For example, we can say humans have Minds. Many of us feel that our pet dogs and cats
have their own Minds and personalities, independent of their physical
being. Is that the end? Why wouldn’t smaller animals, such as mice or
beetles or even amoebas, also share in this feature of existence we label a
Mind? If a one-celled organism can have
a Mind, what about the single-cells that make up all living beings’ body
structures? If a cell can have a sliver
of consciousness then what about the component parts of that cell? Digging lower, what about the individual
molecules and atoms? What about the
constituents of atoms? No one can
provide a definitive answer to where the line should be drawn. Going bigger than humans, are larger
aggregates like cities, mountains, oceans, planets, galaxies all possessed of a
higher level of mind that we humans just cannot comprehend? This book has given me quite a lot to think
about. It is highly recommended.
(The 2017 Revised edition of this book is available for purchase here: PANPSYCHISM IN THE WEST )
