Talk:Panpsychism

Variations on panpsychism
Qualitative Panpsychism

Qualitative Panpsychism
A conglomerate of ideas from various philosophers, qualitative panpsychism has no single proponent. It basically states that 1.) subjectivity is a quality of reality not just mentality, 2.) the experience of "what it is like to be something" is expressed on a qualitative continuum from a very poor experience on one end (such as in the case of rocks etc.) to an exceedingly rich experience on the other (such as in the case of humans or even angelic beings or God).

Supporters and opponents of panpsychism
I think that an enormous list of supporters and opponents of panpsychism is not a good thing for this article: it is already most of the length of the article, the opponents section is much less thorough than the supporters section, there is no criteria in sight for how long the lists could grow, and the reader will get little from such long lists.

Furthermore, I dispute that David Chalmers, C. S. Peirce and Thomas Nagel are panpsychists.

I've deleted the lists and pasted them below. I think the idea of a "Thinkers on panpsychism" is a good one, but it needs to be an annotated list to be valuable to this entry.


 * Gee, I think the list of famous historical (and contemporary) supporters and opponents of panpsychism is fascinating to someone like myself (who didn't know until recently that panpsychism -- which I have believed in for some years was an accepted concept with a word for it!).  To say it is already "most of the length of the article" is nonsense, unless you're counting vertical height.  Usually when people discuss the "length of an article" they are talking about a concept more like the number of words, not vertical height.  If this is such a problem, the names could be formatted horizontally instead of vertically.  (But it's not a problem, so please leave the list vertical!)


 * Sure, annotation would add to the value of the list of names. But I cannot see why "it needs to be annotated" to be valuable to this entry.  Learning about any doctrine or belief is enhanced when one learns who the supporters of that doctrine or belief have been.


 * I definitely vote for restoring the names back into the article.Daqu 18:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Then, make it into a table, you can't delete valuable information as you please. Your reasoning is insufficient and silly. I will restore this list in due time. Who cares whether you dispute that Chalmers is panpsychist? Exa (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 00:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC).

Supporters of panpsychism

 * Anaxagoras
 * Thales
 * Plotinus
 * Henri Bergson
 * David Bohm
 * Giordano Bruno
 * Fritjof Capra
 * David Chalmers
 * William Kingdon Clifford
 * Freeman Dyson
 * Gustav Fechner
 * David Ray Griffin
 * Ernst Haeckel
 * Charles Hartshorne
 * Gerardus Heymans
 * William James
 * A. Kozlov
 * Gottfried Leibniz
 * Rudolf Hermann Lotze
 * William Lycan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qphilo (talk • contribs) 06:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thomas Nagel
 * Friedrich Paulsen
 * Charles Peirce
 * Morton Prince
 * Josiah Royce
 * Friedrich Schelling
 * Ferdinand C. S. Schiller
 * David Skrbina
 * Baruch Spinoza
 * Timothy L.S. Sprigge
 * Galen Strawson
 * Eduard von Hartmann
 * Alfred North Whitehead
 * Ken Wilber
 * Sewall Wright
 * Wilhelm Wundt
 * Gary Zukav
 * James Ward (psychologist)
 * Charles Augustus Strong
 * Bernardino Varisco
 * Thomas Davidson (philosopher)
 * Rudolf Christoph Eucken

Detractors from panpsychism

 * Empedocles
 * Democritus
 * C. D. Broad
 * Patricia Churchland
 * Paul Churchland
 * Daniel Dennett
 * Jaegwon Kim
 * Colin McGinn
 * C. Lloyd Morgan
 * Karl Popper
 * John Searle
 * B. F. Skinner

Chalmers, Nagel, and Peirce
Although Chalmers sometimes seems to resent his association with panpsychism, he is known in the field as arguing a viewpoint supportive of panpsychism. I will need to hunt it down, but I have read a paper or something he wrote where he, somewhat begrudgingly if I'm not mistaken, affirms that his views support (at least they do not contradict) the basic premise of panpsychism (I will go hunting for this when time permits). The main thrust of his work could be summarized as the defense of the idea that consciousness is a non-reducible dimension of the universe. That view is at the very least, sympathetic towards and fully compatible with panpsychism. I say all of this with a caveat - I do not think that Chalmers' overall philosophical point is to promote panpsychism per se, just that his arguments support panpsychism. Of course, I respect the choice to interpret Chalmers as being non-panpsychist, but the generally accepted reading of his work is that it is supportive of panpsychism. I'll finish with a quote from his annotated bibliography. This annotation is a summary of his own work:


 * "There are no strong arguments against panpsychism, and good reason to take it seriously"

Although it is possible that Nagel has since recanted his arguments favoring panpsychism, he did write an article entitled "Panpsychism" (in Mortal Questions (1979)) that presents arguments in favor of panpsychism. This article is oft-cited in conteporary debates as being a defense of Panpsychism.

As for Peirce, at the moment I can't seem to find the support I used for his inclusion on the "pro" list, although, I did develop both lists with support (but I am not beyond making a complete mistake here). I will update the discussion if I get around to finding it (and if it's findable).

I'm not arguing at this point for any modification of the article as it is, I am only responding to the remover of the lists that he would disagree that Chalmers' and Nagel's views are panpsychist. I have planned for some time to expand this article (which I created), although I have not found the time yet. If the article were, in the future, to contain a section about contemporary thought on Panpsychism, both Chalmers and Nagel are essential citations, as they are in other articles (see the Stanford Encylclopedia one). --mporch 00:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Chalmers: it does go to support my suggestion that we shouldn't haven an unannotated list of supporters and opponents -- clearly one cannot simply put Chalmers on a lits of suppporters. My understanding of Chalmers is that he claims that a proper understanding of consciousness would have big implications for our understanding of physics, but that he would agree with such an enlightened materialism.
 * Nagel: Good information; I don't have reason to disupte what you say here.
 * Peirce: I could imagine that at some time Peirce did support such a philosophy, but it doen't fit well with what I understand of his mature philosophy. Charles Stewart 07:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with your removal of the list. I think it's useful to keep it here for research.
 * --mporch 10:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jung and Campbell
I would not classify Jung or Campbell as promoting (or denying for that matter) panpsychism. They both promote versions of the idea that there is a universal human subconscious (their views are in a certain sense, the same, since Campbell basically uses Jung as a theoretical framework). This view is not the basic idea of panpsychism, which is the idea that everything, particularly, non-human things are conscious in one form or another. Moreover, none of the varieties (monads vs. universal consciousness, for example) of panpsychic views include the idea that there is some sort of "subconscious" aspect to conscious things. The idea of the subconscious is a psychoanalytic idea that has basically nothing whatsoever to do with the philosophical idea of panpsychism (which does not detract from its potential value, it is just irrelevant to this article). Putting Jung's and Campbell's ideas into this article both confuses the idea of panpsychism and confuses the understanding of Jung's and Campbell's ideas. Neither of these individuals were on either list that I compiled (which were removed and placed above) because their ideas are simply not viewpoints on panpsychism either pro or con. Their names do not come up in direct connection to debates about panpsychism. I don't necessarily oppose the removal of the lists from the main article (thanks for keeping them here), but I do oppose replacing them with what is irrelevant and confusing information. If consensus for this removal is acheived, this section should be removed.--mporch 00:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * In fact both names were on the list that I deleted; I removed them from the list I pasted above because I had expanded on both names. Otherwise I agree with what you said above; what I wrote did not assert that either thinker was panpsychist, although certainly some have drawn such conculsions from both thinkers writings.  I would have no problem with what I wrote being removed to the comments section.  Charles Stewart 07:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Woops - well, my mistake then. I must have put them on before for some reason, but now I've made a pretty good argument against them being there.  Once again, I agree with further research and elaborating their relationship to panpsychism.
 * --mporch 10:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Idealism, Hegel, and Schopenhauer
Idealism is not necessarily the same as panpsychism, as is stated in the article. However, idealism is compatible with panpsychism in contrast with materialism, which is not. So, idealist philosophers do not necessarily explicitly argue in favor of panpsychism. Neither Hegel nor Schopenhauer (who by some reckonings is actually anti-idealist) are cited as supporting or opposing panpsychism. This is why they were not included in either list that I had compiled. I believe that arguments could be made that both Hegel's and Schopenhauer's philosophies are compatible with panpsychism, to my knowledge, neither of them explicitly comment on it. I feel somewhat ambivalent about the idealism section as it is. Clearly, idealism as a whole is compatible with panpsychism, but it would be unfortunate to confuse the two. Certainly the relationship between the two should be fleshed out as the article matures. I am not sure that citing Hegel and Schopenhauer is necessarily adding to the understanding with out further explanation. I don't suggest making a particular change to the article at this time. I just wanted to get further the discussion. --mporch 00:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Again both were on the list I removed. Charles Stewart 07:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Once again, my bad.
 * --mporch 10:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I rewrote the whole article. I'm a total newbie in Wiki, and I hope nobody gets angered. I hope I made the article better. Let the discussion continue. Jussi Hirvi 18. July 2005

I've updated all relevant information on hylopathism's relation to panpsychism. I also wrote a new article on hyle which has some bearing on discussions of panpsychism.

I also included a very brief discussion of Chalmers' Philosophical Zombie, since I have found that criticism (or other discussion) of this thought experiment is highly relevant to the philosophy of the mind in general, and particularly both to panpsychism and hylopathism in that in both ideologies the concept of mentality is ill-defined, which is also the downfall of Chalmers' argument.

Tastyummy 20:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Epistemology
I think it should be discussed somewhere in the article that most of the thinkers who discuss panpsychism are only making an epistemological claim that we can't know panpsychism is false. (And any argument against it would seem to be an argument from ignorance: I know these things have mental properties. I don't know if those things have mental properties.  Therefore, they don't (or probably don't).)  Some of these people also suggest that panpsychism accords with their intuitions. Hardly anyone actively argues for it as a metaphysical view. KSchutte 17:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Consciousness and sentience
The first paragraph, in defining panpsychism informally, makes a point of distinguishing consciousness from sentience (where it mentions that some forms of panpsychism involve the belief that the universe is sentient, but not necessarily conscious).

The problem here is that, though the word "sentience" is not particularly ambiguous, the word "consciousness" is used in a wide variety of different ways -- and one of those ways is pretty much synonymous with "sentience".

I propose that that either the use of the word "consciousness" be avoided, or that the intended meaning of the word "consciousness" be made much more precise -- even in this informal definition in the first paragraph. (Unfortunately, I am not the right person to do this, because I know very little about panpsychism.  But I do know when the meaning of a passage is unclear.)Daqu 15:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Free will
I feel surprised there is no mention in this article of the implications of panpsychism for free will. For starters, this is a very good paper by Peter Ells (who is also, incidently, a wikipedian, though inactive) on a theory of naturalistic, libertarian free-will based on panpsychism. I would request people here to have a look at it and consider updating the article accordingly. Thanks.  Amit @  Talk  13:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

In relation to other metaphysical positions
Notice the fourth paragraph of the section headed "In relation to other metaphysical positions" contradicts itself quite blatantly when discussing whether "weak" emergence is compatible or necessary for panpsychism:

"No form of panpsychism attributes full, human-style consciousness to the fundamental constituents of the universe therefore all version need a certain amount of emergence — that is, weak emergence, in which more sophisticated versions of basic properties emerge at a higher level. No version of panpsychism requires strong emergence ... Thus, 'weak emergence' would be incompatible with any non-physicalism, such as psychism (including panpsychism); whereas 'strong emergence' would support non-physicalism, such as psychism (including panpsychism)."

Per the article and as a panpsychist myself, the first assertion that panpsychism only requires weak emergence is the correct position; requiring strong emergence would be incompatible with panpsychism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Perthro (talk • contribs) 15:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with your comment that there is a paragraph in this section which both blatantly contradicts a previous (correct) assertion and that whoever inserted the paragraph plainly does not understand the contemporary talk about the strong and weak varieties of emergence or how they're related to materialisms and nonmaterialisms. I am familiar with the quoted paper from which the bulk of the paragraph in question was drawn and the inserter of the quote appears to have both misunderstood and grossly overstated the author's case, arriving at precisely the opposite conclusion of what they should have. I have thus removed most of the misleading paragraph which is as follows:

"Strong emergence, if it exists, can be used to reject the physicalist picture of the world as fundamentally incomplete. By contrast, weak emergence can be used to support the physicalist picture of the world". Thus, "weak emergence" would be incompatible with any non-physicalism, such as psychism (including panpsychism); whereas "strong emergence" would support non-physicalism, such as psychism (including panpsychism). Furthermore, because "strong emergence" has a holistic outlook, it is particularly amenable to universalist holistic panpsychism ("one single mind that unites everything that is" as "universal soul" etc. of Neo-platonic metaphysics).

Knowing how wikipedia functions, and knowing the nature of the proponents of panpsychism (being one myself), I have some confidence that the eliminated section will be reinserted. However that would be a mistake for the above-mentioned reasons which serve to show that the eliminated paragraph misinforms the entry-reader and undermines their ability to understand what panpsychism is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.204.147.57 (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Nagel's argument, discussed later in the page, includes as its second premise: '(2) "Nonreductionism", or the view that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties.' Weak emergence is reductionism; at very least that's what the wikipedia article says on the specific topic, though admittedly the article is rather short. I thought the point of panpsychism is that there isn't any emerging being done in the first place; there is consciousness 'everywhere', and the changes in "material" circumstances relate to changes in "conscious" circumstances, without necessarily requiring the 'panpsychist' to take a definite view on the 'substantial nature'/'ontological makeup' of, and relationship between these two principally distinguishable 'aspects' of our world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.38.36 (talk) 02:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The discussion there is bland and possibly from a dualist point of view, it is not true that "reductive physicalism is incompatible with panpsychism", whatever makes you feel that way, I cannot fathom. However, that would be an argument, not a certainty. I most certainly disagree with the presentation of that as fact. In fact, I must edit it to reflect that it is *not* a fact. You can add references to support that point of view later. By the way, "emergentism" is just another variety of middle age superstition and so is "non-reductionism". Exa (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC).

If the discussion in the 'arguments for panpsychism' section is 'bland' perhaps you should consider rewriting it, or at least suggest some direction for improvement. While your comment that "emergentism is just another variety of... superstition" might have some basis (since emergentists don't offer a mechanism or causal means by which the emergent properties 'arrive' in the world ("it's suspiciously like magic")), I don't think that you could say that about "non-reductionism". There is an extensive literature on the topic, and an adequate reduction of first person phenomena to third person activity is yet to have been achieved. Of course, favouring a materialist metaphysic will incline you to believe that reductionism must, somehow, be possible. But given that such a reduction has not been achieved, it seems little more than a superstition to presume that it will be. One might argue, from a metaphysical presumption of materialism, that it must be possible to achieve such a reduction, but the arguments that first person phenomena are irreducible to a third person material world can be made from a metaphysical neutral position; they are epistemic arguments - they do not require that 'we have already subscribed to dualism' in the way that arguments for reductionism depend on our presuming materialism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.133.7.37 (talk) 18:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Detailed understanding?
''Another criticism is that we have a detailed understanding of how cognition — thought, memory, etc — work in terms of the functioning and structure of the brain. If the matter that the brain is made of already has cognitive abilities simply by virtue of being matter, then cognition is somehow being done twice over.''
 * This is news to me. Just looking at the article on memory, I see the following: "Overall, the physiological mechanisms behind memory are poorly understood.[7]"  Perhaps this paragraph should be removed? Viriditas (talk) 09:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Dubious
I've put a "dubious" tag on the following quote from the article: "Another criticism is that we have a detailed understanding of how cognition — thought, memory, etc — work in terms of the functioning and structure of the brain."

Aside the fact that this assertion is unsourced (as an existing "citation needed" tag already indicates), as someone who has studied neuroscience I can say unequivocally that this statement is false. The first thing any neuroscience professor tells an ambitious student is "at the end of the day we really have no clue how the brain works". We can probe and prod the brain to say "hey, this part lights up on the screen when we show this sort of image to the subject"; we can dissect individual neurons to determine what conditions cause them to fire; we can model them on computers as neural networks and perform interesting "brain-like" tasks such as associative memory and "learning". But this is all a far cry from "a detailed understanding of how cognition - thought, memory, etc - work in terms of the functioning and structure of the brain." Mbarbier (talk) 17:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ha, I should have just looked at the section right above this one. Mbarbier (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Update on the article
Hello, i am very educated on pansychism. For the pansychism article i am going to be updating it in a few weeks. I will add alot of information to the article including a section on the history of panpsychism. I find the current article very slim in content, really it does not have enough information on it!! I hope to change that. 86.10.119.131 (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Better definition
This is a much better definition of panpsychism rather than what is currently on the article:

panpsychism: In philosophy (also called pampsychism), the theory that all matter, or all nature, is itself psychical, or has a psychical aspect; that atoms and molecules, as well as plants and animals, have a rudimentary life of sensation, feeling, and impulse that bears the same relation to their movements just as the psychical life of human beings does to their objective activities.

Perhaps this definition should be added?

86.10.119.131 (talk) 13:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Here are the definitions of a number of words: Perhaps some of this can be added to the article?


 * Panpsychism (also known as pampsychism) is the view that all parts of matter involve mind.
 * Hylozoism is the philosophical conjecture that all or some material things possess life, or that all life is inseparable from matter.
 * Animism is the belief in souls, which may, depending on your religious preference, be present in animals, plants, and objects, and people.
 * Panexperientialism credits all entities with phenomenal consciousness but not necessarily with cognition.
 * Panprotoexperientialism is a weaker form of panexperientialism, crediting entities only with latent consciousness.
 * Quantum Animism attributes spirit, mind, or mentality only to quantum-realm particles.
 * Vitalism invokes a non-physical "élan vital" or "life spark."
 * Neo-Psychism is a new term coined to detach itself from traditional panpsychism and its connotations.
 * Hylopathism is the belief that some or all matter is sentient or that properties of matter in general give rise to subjective experience.
 * Idealism is the philosophical theory which maintains that experience is ultimately based on mental activity.

86.10.119.131 (talk) 20:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Dzogchen
I've toned the last section down a bit, but it still seems POVish. Sheer ignorance prevents me doing more.1Z (talk) 13:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Neutral Monism
Spinoza didn't introduce neutral monism, he introduced dual aspect theory. They are different, principally in that in neutral monism the mental and physical are both separable and reducible to the underlying neutral substrate. So the sentence "varieties of monism that don't presuppose (like materialism and idealism do) that mind and matter are fundamentally separable. An example is neutral monism" is wrong.Aarghdvaark (talk) 14:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Neutral monism is widely linked to Dual Aspect theory, because the two Aspects, mind and matter, are presumably aspects of something, which must be in itself neutral between mind and matter. 1Z (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Panexperientialism and Panprotexperientialism
..have been sideline in the current version of the article, although it is the only page dealing with them on WP and they are immportant in contemporary philosophy. Gregg Rosenberg needs to be mentioned vis a vis intrinsic properties. 1Z (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

And the links are broken, and Panprotexperientialism has been misspelt as panprotpsychism...this is a considerable step back from previous version of the page. The history (particularly ancient) of the topic has been expanded at the expense of contemporary relevance. 1Z (talk) 17:14, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The See Also section
..is much too long. Most of the links are already mentioned in the article. 1Z (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Dogen
The article claims that Dogens "fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles are also mind" is panpsychist. This is likely wrong and the quoted source is probably not representative. Dogen uses "fences and walls, tiles and pebbles" usually to refers to the concept of things people have created in their minds. This is the reasons why they indeed _are_ mind. This is different from stating that the objects themselves have mind without being conceived by humans (or possibly animals),

Further Reading Addition
Please discuss why Fideler's book Restoring the Soul of the World belongs in Further Reading in this article on panpsychism. It is not the subject of the book. Thus its relevance must be argued for, and why it is more relevant than other books that are about panpsychism. Dazedbythebell (talk) 11:46, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * As there has been no discussion I am removing the book from Further Reading for the second time. Note that creating new user names to appear to avert edit warring is not a good strategy. Dazedbythebell (talk) 18:07, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

New book: The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture
New book: The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture by Tony D. Sampson, 2017, University of Minnesota Press. Per Chronicle of Higher Education, "Draws on Deleuze and Guattari to defend a vision of the brain that emerges from the non-locationist tradition of panpsychism." Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

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Panpsychism is a part of the series on God?
Why is that so? Panpsychism is a theory about consciousness that doesn't necessitate any particular view on the existence or non-existence of a deity (or deities). It seems that it has been confused with pantheism, which is a different view altogether. Could someone explain? Thank you! NinoK21 (talk) 18:03, 23 Oct 2018 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a question for the people who run that template more than for here. I'll post there directing them to it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:32, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Religion or Analytic Philosophy?
This page can't seem to decide. The second sentence in the lede points to this problem. "Panpsychists see themselves as minds in a world of mind." This is not an acceptable sentence, especially for the lede, in an analytic philosophy page. But if we are talking about Buddhism, for instance, it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure how to fix that. My first instinct is to cut the sentence altogether. I think it would work to have the lede talk about the general notion of panpsychism, just the definition of the word. Then subsections could branch out into the philosophical v religious takes on it. DolyaIskrina (talk) 02:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree, the page does seem torn between the two. I don't know that Wikipedia has a highly specific guideline for this kind of question (though it might). Therefore, since the two uses seem too closely related to have separate pages, it's probably appropriate to keep the split focus and emphasize the two angles in proportion to their emphasis in reliable sources, according to WP:DUE. Based on sources I've read on the topic and those cited on this page I would say that means a much heavier emphasis on analytic philosophy than religion. With that in mind, I would agree with nixing the sentence you mentioned, as well as the word "primordial" in the first sentence. The lede already mentions Stoicism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Mahayana, after all.


 * Then as you said other perspectives can be discussed further down. For starters, Eastern philosophy already has a section, though it may need some work. I'm also thinking of changing the section on its relationship to holism (which based on its article is only distantly related) to a section on its relationship to pantheism (which is basically what the section already covers). That section could also note important differences between panpsychism and pantheism. I'm not sure if religion needs any treatment beyond that, though I'm open to suggestions. --Gazelle55 (talk) 06:24, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Quantum physics
In the “arguments for panpsychism” section it mentions that quantum physics has been used to justify panpsychism but doesn’t elaborate further. Does anyone know enough about quantum theory to elaborate on what those arguments are? A.gee.dizzle (talk) 10:40, 1 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't have the background myself, unfortunately (which is why I left it as is after removing unsourced material). My understanding is that there is some diversity in the arguments made, so for example Whitehead and Bohm use different arguments, which will make it more complicated. Hopefully another editor can weigh in. I also think there needs to be some criticism cited there as this is far from mainstream in physics. Gazelle55 (talk) 20:48, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Quantum physics is above my weight class, but I’ll take a look at the sources and see if I can parse it. I am also aware of some criticisms I could include A.gee.dizzle (talk) 23:29, 1 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The usual use of quantum physics for such purposes is to say "quantum!" and rely on everybody being impressed and not asking any further. Of course there is no valid connection, just the idea that the two things are probably connected because they are both difficult to understand. It's a bluff. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

See also: allow or disallow links already cited in the article
Dear ,

You point to MOS:SEEALSO, which says "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body". But it also says that "Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense". It seems to me that in many cases, these two recommendations are in conflict. But let's look at the case at hand:

(A) Do you agree that Philosophy of mind, Anima mundi, and Microcosm-macrocosm analogy are, among all Wikipedia articles, some of the most closely related to Panpsychism?

(B) Do you agree that a significant amount of readers will, when they reach the end of the article, be looking for another article to read, and take a look at the 'see also' section for pointers?

(C) Do you agree that some of those readers who reach the end of the article will not have clicked the three links mentioned above, and not have all of them clearly in mind anymore when looking at the 'see also' section for another article to read?

(Cbis) Do you agree that some other readers who reach the end of the article will not have read all of it, and may, e.g., have skipped the first half of the article (in which the three links mentioned above appear)?

(D) If you agree with all of the above, how does it make sense to you to point these readers who reached the end of the article to articles like Mythopoeic thought or Transpersonal psychology, but not to Philosophy of mind et al.? Both Mythopoeic thought and Transpersonal psychology are marginally related, and as such probably do deserve their place in the 'see also' section, but why only point readers looking for more information to the less relevant articles?

In what is probably the most recent RfC on the subject, those who defended the guideline you quote wrote the following:

The guideline says "As a general rule", so if a link is particularly important and helpful to the reader, it can be repeated in See also. But if this [sc. this guideline] is removed entirely, people will add whatever links they want to draw attention to.

The point of the guideline is to make sure the See also section doesn't get too long, so we're supposed to use it sparingly. If something really is an excellent link to repeat, then you can do it. Note that editors may differ in their interpretion of "excellent", of course. We used to have an editor who would go around removing See alsos, no matter how helpful. He would either incorporate them into the text or remove them. That was a nuisance, but I've not seen anyone do that in a systematic way for years.

The way I see it, the links in the article body are most often associated with some sort of context or description. The links in the "See also" section are most often not. [...] So, the rule prevents the section from becoming a list of indiscriminate items.

Even if this rule is lifted, I will continue removing those "See also" links that I had removed in the past, only this time I will cite WP:REPEATLINK. And there is a reason to it too: I have never removed a link from "See also" whose existence improved the article despite this "rule". MOS is a guideline and I treat it that way.

[...] If the restriction is lifted, then I don't see a natural limitation. In a biographical article that describes a person's associations with many other people over decades, all of them wikilinked, what would keep others from thinking "Hey, he worked with X, we should suggest to readers that they also see X", with the "see also" section ultimately containing dozens of links and thereby rendering the section fairly useless as a means of focus on especially related topics.

It seems to me that those who (successfully) defended the guideline primarily see it as a way to avoid editorial discussions on what to include or exclude from a 'see also' section. Moreover, some of them do not even intend to follow it when it is not in line with their editorial view, but want to keep it only because they like to use it when it is in line with their editorial view. But, as I see it, this rationale is in deep conflict with the spirit of Wikipedia, which favors discussion over the bureaucratic application of rules.

But perhaps their views are not relevant. I wonder, what is your rationale for removing the links from the 'see also' section? Apaugasma (talk&#124;contribs) 10:59, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If you feel that this article requires special consideration, then do as you wish. Editor2020 (talk) 17:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your magnanimity! Apaugasma (talk&#124;contribs) 23:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Very confused page
Most of this page - especially the history - is about idealism. You could argue that it’s referring to cosmopanpsychism, but panpsychism typically refers to constituent panpsychism. Very few (if any) of the people listed in the history would see subatomic particles as having their own subjective experience in the way most panpsychists do. Instead they would see physical properties as a representation of mental processes or forms (right back to Plato and his analogy of the cave), which is idealism rather than panpsychism. Whitehead and Russell perhaps don’t fit neatly into either, but in general the article reflects poor understanding of the difference of the metaphysical differences between the two.

To explain the key difference, idealism sees phenomenal consciousness as the irreducible substance of the universe, whereas panpsychism sees consciousness as a fundamental property of matter. Cosmopanpsychism is in effect equivalent to idealism, but to take this to suggest that panpsychism is the same as idealism (as - in effect - this article does) will just confuse people. Simonadams (talk) 10:39, 23 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi,, it seems to me that the relationship between the two is not well defined. There is a subsection in this article on the relationship to idealism, and I discovered when writing it that different sources carve up the intellectual territory differently between the two terms. If you have more sources that discuss the relationship between the two, absolutely please add them to that section. As far as historical figures, since they didn't use either term for themselves in many cases, we have to stick with how reliable sources describe them. If reliable sources say they are not panpsychists, but rather idealists, feel free to be bold and correct the article. I do think some writers have wound up on this page who probably don't belong here but I haven't gotten around to fixing that. Gazelle55 (talk) 03:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Gazelle55. I fully appreciate the challenges, especially when retrospectively applying terms that didn’t exist at the time. It’s a self reinforcing problem that causes the meaning of terms to change over time. In reality most modern “panpsychists” just bolt consciousness onto physicalism, which is very different to the older view where matter itself is an expression of something more fundamental.

There are “Objective Idealism” page which arguably should just be scrapped and replaced with the “Idealism” page. I don’t have the time to make a worthwhile proposal for these things at present, but I may come back to it next year if no one else has picked up the gauntlet! Simonadams (talk) 00:21, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Typo: I seem to have deleted some text … “ There are OTHER AREAS THAT COULD DO WITH A TIDY UP SUCH AS THE “Objective Idealism” page …” Simonadams (talk) 00:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * , yeah you're right that having consciousness as an extra to matter (like Chalmers and maybe Goff) is much different from consciousness being the most fundamental (like Kastrup, say). If we can find sources to make the contrast clearer that would be good cause I see your point that conflating them isn't ideal (apologies for the pun lol). I think maybe this is what Meixner is getting at when he distinguishes between dualistic panpsychism and idealistic panpsychism... but so far I think he is cited only briefly. Also, I agree the objective idealism page is pretty bad now but I do think it's valuable to have as a contrast to Berkeley's subjective idealism. If you ever do have time to make a more detailed proposal for what to do with it please tag me as I'm interested to help! Gazelle55 (talk) 19:57, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Philip Goff
Section 2.6 of this article should mention Philip Goff, who has defended a panpsychist Weltanschauung in his book "Galileo's Error". YTKJ (talk) 20:49, 14 May 2022 (UTC)