Hartshorne
B. Interactionism
6. Arguments Supporting the Panpsychistic Version of Identism Kant (1787) assumed that something extramental exists, but in his time
physics and chemistry had only analyzed this ‘matter’ in a very
insufficient manner. He therefore argued that the ‘thing in itself’ is inscrutable and developed a philosophy which is termed ‘critical idealism.’ At present, we have quite detailed knowledge about
molecules, ions, atoms, elementary particles, electromagnetic waves, electric fields and all kinds of material processes, but we are still not yet able to say what ‘matter’ ultimately is like. As I tried to show in the preceding part, we also know something about the structure and function of that part of brain matter to which psychic phenomena correspond.
This psychophysically acting brain substance is, however, composed of the same atoms, ions and elementary particles which we find outside living beings. And the same holds true for oscillations of electric currents and electric fields which the brain produces. All this psychophysical substrate is developed during embryogenesis from compounds of the blood stream coming from the placenta, and that means that it ultimately derives from the food of the mother. After birth the brain cells in question are nourished by the food of the growing child. Some weeks later the brain cells no longer divide, but they show an almost frequent turnover of many of their protein compounds. Hence, there is no particular ‘psychophysical matter’ involved in the brain cells and their functions. Only a special systemic order of atoms in certain
molecules of different types of brain cells, steady activity of these cells and excitations coming from sensoric nerves and running to associative and motoric centers are the basis of the peculiarity of brain function. We must therefore ask: Whence can the correspondent psychic phenomena come, if they should be something totally different from matter?
This question seems to be unanswerable. Sherrington (1940) raised it, but did not find an answer. However, when we attribute a protopsychic nature to all matter, then conscious phenomena become understandable.
When atoms form a molecule, absolutely new chemical and physical characteristics arise in consequence of new systemic relations. For instance, by combination of the light metal sodium with the gas chlorine, salt arises, the characteristics of which are totally different from the characteristics of its atoms. If we now ascribe a protopsychic nature to atoms, the protopsychic characteristics, too, could produce new protopsychic characteristics by these new systemic relations. The much more complicated integration in large molecules of neurons and of neurons in an active brain would lead to still more complicated systemic relations and not only to protopsychic ones, but also to real psychic phenomena, to sensations and mental images. Panpsychistic identism assumes that the physical characteristics are also the psychic characteristics. But they can only be experienced if they belong to a complex physiological process in a human or animal brain, which we call the ‘stream of consciousness.’ Motoric excitations and many excitations in the brainstem and the cerebellum do not belong to this process.
This panpsychistic conception may appear to be nothing more than a bold hypothesis. However, it can be supported by other considerations (Wright 1964; Rensch 1968, 1969, 1971, 1974). In the first place the phylogenetic development of psychic processes suggests this
assumption. Certainly, sensations, mental images, feelings and thoughts are private experiences of each human individual. But they are
indubitable reality. We can be informed about corresponding
phenomena of our fellow men by language, and it would be absurd to hold a solipsism. It is more difficult to judge about psychic phenomena of animals. We can do it only with conclusions from analogy. But these conclusions are very cogent in higher animals. In a little lesser degree the behavior of lower vertebrates allows the conclusion that these animals have sensations, feelings and memory. Fish can learn different optical or acoustical tasks. Large species master up to six successively learned visual discriminations simultaneously. Fish are subject to the
simultaneous color contrast and to optical illusions in the same manner as man. Of course, we can never exactly know what kind of sensations, feelings and mental images they experience. But it is sufficient for our questioning that the conclusion is justified that fish, too, absolutely behave as if they have psychic phenomena. Moreover,
electrophysiological investigations show continuous, changing
oscillations of electric potentials. This allows the conclusion that their perceptions and mental images are united in a stream of consciousness in waking conditions.
However, some higher invertebrate animals also show similar
achievements. Bees, bumblebees and cuttlefish like the Octopus have well-functioning eyes. Their brain is divided in regions with different coordinated functions, and it is composed of several hundred thousands of nerve cells (the honey bee has about 800,000). They can learn to discriminate colors and black and white patterns and can master all 3 or 4 learned tasks on the same day. Bees are also subjected to simultaneous color contrast. It is therefore possible and even probable that they
experience sensations and memory, that is to say, conscious phenomena, but surely not in the sense of human experience which is connected with a concept of one’s own self. It is natural to assume that they also
experience positive and negative feeling tones, because they prefer certain tastes and reject other ones. The satisfaction of all feeding, copulating and cleaning drives in animals is probably guided by such feeling tones.
In animals of still lower levels of organization the conclusions from analogy are much vaguer. However, the lowliest worms have sense organs, nerve cells and nerve centers, and these cells function more or less in the same manner as those of higher animals. And these animals can learn at least in the sense of conditioned reflexes. The same is possibly the case in coelenterates. If we suppose that the lowest
multicellular invertebrates would also have sensations, these would be separated events -- they would not belong to a ‘stream of
consciousness.’
Protozoa have no nerve-like fibers (as formerly assumed), and they cannot learn. However, unicellular organisms show positive and negative ‘sense reactions’ to chemical stimuli, particularly to those which indicate food or a partner for copulation or conjugation. It seems therefore to be possible to assume that they have single sensations or prestages of sensations. Such speculation can only be based on the fact
that all animal evolution was a continuous process and that sensations of multicellular animals must have some phylogenetic prestages.
If we regard sensations as immaterial things which are totally different from all material, physiological processes, it would be difficult to imagine from where these psychic phenomena should have come.
Wright (1964, p. 113) wrote: "Emergence of mind from no mind is sheer magic." But when we suppose that all matter has a protopsychic nature -- an assumption which was already suggested by our
considerations of the brain functions -- then the phylogenetical
development of sensations and other mental processes would become understandable. The integration of certain atoms and complicated molecules into neurons in the course of phylogeny, and further on into nervous systems and brains, could produce psychic processes. These would arise by new systemic relations, beginning with protopsychic prestages of sensations and leading to real sensations, memory and all higher psychic phenomena.
This assumption has a particular advantage. It would mean that the whole evolution of our earth and of life could be regarded as a continuous causal process. At present it is increasingly probable that life originated gradually from inorganic matter due to causal
biochemical processes. In prebiological times, prestages of organisms, at first so-called protobionts, developed in the ‘primeval soup.’ About 3 billion years ago true unicellular organisms had already developed (cf.
Fox 1965, 1971; Oparin 1968; Buvet and Ponamperuma 1971; Kaplan 1972). This continuous development suggests the assumption of a corresponding development of protopsychic and psychic phenomena of organic matter in the sense of a panpsychistic identism.
The panpsychistic hypothesis becomes perhaps still more convincing when we consider the individual development of mental processes of man. A fertilized human egg and the following multicellular stages do not indicate sensations or other psychic phenomena. Only after sense- cells, nerve-cells and a brain have been developed can the fetus have sensations, and after birth the behavior of the young child shows that it surely experiences sensations with positive and negative feeling tones and begins to develop associations and memory. If these phenomena would be something immaterial, fundamentally different from material physiological processes, we must ask again:
Where do these psychic processes come from? Should we believe that a
‘soul’ has been ‘inserted’ in some stage of the ontogenetical development? And how can it happen that this ‘soul’ shows
characteristics of parents and grandparents? Twin research has clearly proved that many psychic characteristics are inherited.
All mental characteristics are ultimately transmitted from parents to children by the germ cells and by the arrangement of genes on the threadlike molecules of desoxyribonucleid acid (DNA), the general chemical structure of which is well known. As these molecules are capable of transmitting psychic characteristics from one generation to the next one, it is natural to assume that molecules have a protopsychic nature. And as they are composed of atoms which also compose other types of molecules, it becomes probable that all molecules, atoms and their elementary particles have such a protopsychic nature. This allows the conclusion that sensations and mental images arise by the
integration of protopsychic characteristics of ‘matter.’
When we now ask what physics knows about ‘matter,’ we can state that the present concept no more means something ‘solid,’ ‘substantial.’
Mass is equivalent to energy and can become radiation. ‘Matter’ can only be defined as a complex of relations between energy, charge, spin, speed and spatial and temporal relations. And all these concepts do not mean something ‘solid.’ This fact allows us to try a description of
‘matter’ by a mathematical ‘world formula.’ It was an unnecessary former hypothesis that all these components must have a ‘carrier.’ Our present conception of matter is much more compatible with
panpsychistic identism than all former conceptions.
Summing up, we can state that many considerations speak in favor of a panpsychistic identism:
(1) the precise correspondence between many physiological brain processes and psychic phenomena; (2) the fact that the psychophysical substrate of our brain contains the same atoms, elementary particles and fields of energy which can occur outside the brain; (3) the phylogenetic development of psychic phenomena can be understood best when we suppose a protopsychic nature of all ‘matter’; if we assume that mental phenomena would be something fundamentally different from
physiological processes, it would be difficult to conceive whence it should have come in the course of evolution; (4) the ontogeny of
psychic phenomena is a still stronger argument in favor of panpsychistic identism, particularly because DNA-molecules are able to transmit
mental characteristics to the next generation; (5) present physics no longer defines matter as something ‘solid,’ but as a complex of relations between energy, charge, spin, speed and spatial and temporal
characteristics; this definition is compatible with panpsychistic
identism, when we assume that matter is something protopsychical. One final comment: The assumption of protopsychic matter is no more
revolutionary than our epistemological knowledge that all objects which we see have no color, because color only arises in sense cells and brain.
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RESPONSE TO RENSCH’S PAPER By Charles Hartshorne
Charles Hartshorne has taught philosophy primarily at the University of Chicago, Emory University, and the University of Texas; at the latter he is now Emeritus Ashbel Smith Professor of Philosophy.
There is an apparent contradiction between the mutual influence between mental and bodily events and the doctrine (which I hold) that the data of experience are independent of that experience. The
contradiction is removed by the following theory, derived from
Whitehead, and so far as I know, first clearly stated by him. If mind, call it M, and body (physiological process), call it B, interact, then any
mental state M at time t, which influences a bodily state, say B at time t1, will be temporally prior to that bodily state, and it will be temporally subsequent to any bodily state which influences it. Then, assuming that events depend only upon their temporal predecessors, the independence of the data will be preserved. In Whitehead’s system, all influence is taken to have the temporal structure of antecedent and independent condition and subsequent dependent result.
Rensch cites experiments in which electrical stimulation of the cortex produced, without detectable time interval, psychical phenomena. He admits (in conversation) that strict simultaneity is not absolutely proved.
Since the causal concept above explicated says nothing about the extent of the time difference between condition and its most immediate results, it is not clear how such observations or any others could show the
invalidity of the concept. Here, too, the issue seems logical, not factual.
15
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Mind in Nature: the Interface of
Science and Philosophy by John B. and David R. Griffin Cobb, Jr.
Part 3: The Primacy of Mind
John B. Cobb, Jr. is Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont, Avery professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate School, and Director of the Center for Process Studies. David Ray Griffin teaches Philosophy of religion at the School of theology at Claremont and Claremont Graduate School and is Executive Director of the Center for Process Studies. Published by University Press of America, 1977. This book was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.