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by ajross 809 days ago
> The most fundamental argument for panpsychism is that it obeys Occam's razor FAR better than the "emergent animate matter" hypothesis.

Meh. Seems to me like this is just dressing up the anthropic principle in clerical robes. The scare quotes around the "emergent animate matter" strawman sort of give the game away. There is no such "hypothesis". "Animate matter" is an observation, how it emerged is a question, and a difficult one. But declaring "Because Panpsychism" doesn't constitute an answer any more than "In the Beginning..." did.
2 comments
CuriouslyC 809 days ago
Not at all. The anthropic principle is sort of going in the opposite direction in fact, as it presupposes all these conditions on consciousness then waves a magic wand over all of it because we happen to be able to observe and reason, so of course those conditions were met, end of story, yawn.

Panpsychism says that it doesn't matter how life evolved, because the universe is aware as a matter of fact, so the particulars are unimportant, just the ability to encode, store and transmit information so complexity can develop over time.

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ajross 809 days ago
So, no, that's a mischaracterization. The Anthropic Principle isn't an explanation or a theory. It's not even science, it's just a philosophical argument putting a boundary around "Things that Make Sense to Talk About". Basically: "If things weren't the way they are we wouldn't be here to talk about them, so let's just not"

> Panpsychism says that it doesn't matter how life evolved, because the universe is aware as a matter of fact, so the particulars are unimportant,

Which is almost exactly a paraphrase of the concept I just elucidated. But with some weird religious imagery attached. I find that uninteresting.

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notahacker 809 days ago
yeah. It's "some parts of the universe that could replicate much more if they have consciousness developed consciousness" vs "the universe was conscious all along, and so it ensured that other small fractions of it had selection pressures to develop consciousness", and I'm not sure the second explanation is more parsimonious...
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