This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“The reason is that consciousness is
not publicly observable. I can’t look
inside your head and see your feelings and experiences. Consciousness is not something we discovered
in a particle collider or looking down a microscope. We know that consciousness exists not from
observation and experiment, but from our immediate awareness of our own
feelings. If you’re in pain, you’re just
directly aware of your pain. Moreover,
the reality of one’s own feelings and experiences is known with greater
certainty than anything we know through experiments. Even though consciousness is not publicly
observable, its reality is hard data that any adequate theory of reality must
account for.” – Philip Goff, Chapter 3: Consciousness Points to Purpose,
Page 60
“For the sake of simplicity, for the moment I’ll work with a particle-based interpretation of panpsychism, according to which the physical universe is made up of tiny fundamental particles, each of which has conscious experience of a very rudimentary form. Human experience is incredibly complex, but subjective experience come in all shapes and sizes. If there is something that it’s like to be a bedbug, then it’s incredibly simple compared to what it’s like to be a human being. There seems to be no inherent limit to how simple subjective experience could be. If particles have experience, then it is presumably of an incredibly simple form, corresponding to their incredibly simple physical structure.” – Philip Goff, Chapter 3: Consciousness Points to Purpose, Page 71
“This hopeful commitment to our capacity to advance the purposes of the universe transforms our ethical situation. True ethics is not about helping your kin alone – the exclusive concern of a Mafia boss – or helping your nation alone – the exclusive concern of the fascist. True ethics is a concern to make reality better. If there is no cosmic purpose, then making reality better is mostly a negative project, in the sense that it largely consists in removing bad stuff, such as suffering and injustice. Removing suffering and injustice is incredibly important, and one can live a highly meaningful life as a humanist dedicated to this end. But if cosmic purpose is still unfolding, and if our actions can contribute – even in some small way – to bringing about the next stage of cosmic evolution, then the potential consequences of our actions are so much greater than they would be in the absence of cosmic purpose. We may be able to contribute to bringing about a vastly superior state of existence to the one we currently inhabit.” – Philip Goff, Chapter 7: Living with Purpose, Page 152
Is This An Overview?
Even without cosmic significance, there is meaning in human
activity. What people do affects the
present and changes the opportunities for the future. People have the capacity to make reality
better, to enable a cosmic evolution.
Meaning can be found without purpose provided by an
omnipotent being. There are alternative
options to a moral omnipotent being and atheism. A being who can create a universe is not
necessarily moral, or necessarily omnipotent.
There is the possibility that humanity is part of a simulation
experiment run by beings that possess advanced technology. Another possibility is that of
panpsychism.
Panpsychism assumes that every particle has a conscious of
their own. Human consciousness is not
publicly available, as consciousness cannot be verified through objective
experimentation, but there is certainty in feelings and experiences. Even simple organisms have a
consciousness. There is no uniform
consciousness, for the complexity of the conscious can come in different
degrees, with no limit to how simple.
Particles, which are assumed to be inanimate objects, possibly have a
conscious of their own, in a rudimentary form.
A conscious that enables the particle to respond rationally to their
experiences.
Caveats?
