Rudy
Rucker doesn't do his fellow panpsychists any favours. Or, at the
very least, he doesn't do the more philosophically rigorous and less
flamboyant panpsychists any favours.
Despite
saying all that, I may be barking up the wrong tree in this piece
anyway. Perhaps many of Rucker's claims aren't meant to be taken
literally. Perhaps they're meant to be taken poetically,
metaphorically or even spiritually. After all, Rucker is a novelist
who's written over 20 science fiction or “cyberpunk” novels
and many other works of fiction. He's also distantly related to
Hegel: so that may also explain
his flights of fancy.
However,
Rudy Rucker has studied mathematics at PhD level. He's also been a
professor of mathematics and written non-fiction books on scientific
subjects.
In
terms of detail, Rudy Rucker taught mathematics at the State
University of New York at Geneseo from 1972 to 1978. He then taught
maths at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg from 1978 to
1980. After that, in 1986, Rucker became a computer science professor
at San José State University. (He retired from that job in 2004.)
Rucker
has also written non-fiction books on mathematics and physics; such
as Geometry,
Relativity and the Fourth Dimension and
Infinity and the Mind.
More relevantly to this piece, he also wrote The
Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul.
So
even though Rudy Rucker's views will muddy the waters for at least
some panpsychists, it may still be helpful to move his extreme
views out of the way.
Do
Rocks Have Minds?
In
his short essay, 'Mind
is a universally distributed quality' (which
can be found in the book What
is Your Dangerous Idea?),
Rudy Rucker says that “[e]ach object has a mind”. That is,
“[s]tars, hills, chairs, rocks, scraps of paper, flakes of skin,
molecules” all have minds.
Rucker
isn't only saying that all these objects have “experiences” or
embody what some philosophers call “phenomenal properties”. And
he certainly isn't saying that they only embody “proto-experience”
or “panproto-experience”.
(As David
Chalmers
and other philosophers have it.) No; Rucker uses the word “mind”; as well as the words “experiences” and “sensations”.
So
it must now be said that when (some) philosophers talk about
“experience” or “phenomenal properties”, they aren't
necessarily also talking about minds. However, it can of course be
argued that experiences and phenomenal properties must surely come
attached to (as it were) minds.
So
what is a mind?
If
Rudy Rucker defines the word “mind” so that it only includes what
he calls “inner experiences” and “sensations”, then his use
of that word would be - by his definition
- correct.
Perhaps
experience does come along with mind in the sense that it's hard to
think of a mind-less experience. However, that may not quite be the
case when it comes to phenomenal properties because, prima
facie,
one can conceive
(a word often used when philosophers modalise
about these issues) of them as belonging to non-minds; or to, yes,
Rudy Rucker's scraps of paper or flakes of skin.
Rudy
Rucker's Scepticism?
Rudy
Rucker himself seems to offer us a
tiny bit
of scepticism towards his own positions on panpsychism when he writes
the following:
“Might
panpsychism be a distinction without a difference?... What is added
by claiming that these aspects of reality are like minds?”
However,
Rucker doesn't mention panpsychism itself in the passage above (i.e.,
after the first sentence). Instead he mentions “quantum collapse”,
“chaotic dynamics” and “universal computation” instead.
It's
also worth saying that elsewhere Rucker doesn't say that
particles, rocks, etc. “are like minds” - as he does at the end of
the passage above. He says that “each object
has a
mind”.
Nonetheless,
we can still repeat his question:
What's added by claiming that “these aspects of reality are like
minds”?
When
Rucker says that particles “are like minds”, what's added to our
notion of a particle by saying that? Indeed when Rucker says that a
particle “has a mind”, what's he actually saying?
Well,
he's saying – among other things - that a rock, flake of skin,
molecule, etc:
i)
Has “singular inner experiences and sensations”.
ii)
“Embodies universal computations.”
iii)
Is “glowing with inner light”.
However,
isn't all this simply passing
the
buck to other words?
What
do the words “inner experiences” and “sensations” mean in the
context of a particle? Indeed what does “universal computation”
mean in the context of a flake of skin or a molecule?
A
Rock's Experiences & Sensations
As
quoted earlier, Rudy Rucker mentions various attributes of mind. He
says that stars, hills, chairs, rocks, scraps of paper, flakes of
skin, etc. have “singular inner experiences and sensations”.
What
are “inner experiences” and “sensations”? (Are there outer
experiences?)
Wouldn't
objects need sensory
receptors,
brains,
central nervous systems, etc. in
order to have sensations? (Wikipedia defines a sensation as “the
body's detection of external or internal stimulation”.)
One
can say that all this depends on what sensations are. Alternatively,
perhaps it depends on Rudy Rucker's own definition of the word
'sensation'.
Indeed
has Rucker ever defined the word 'sensation' within these contexts?
Has he even an implicit (or tacit) definition of that word lodged
somewhere deep within his mind? Alternatively, is his use of the word
'sensation' simply poetical or metaphorical?
As
hinted at a moment ago, can some thing
have a sensation of pain without it also being a biological body? We
can of course conceive
(à la
David
Chalmers
and Philip
Goff)
of pains occurring in things which aren't human beings or other
animals. So what about in the case of Rucker's rock or his flakes of
skin? In evolutionary terms, why would a flake of skin or even a rock
need to feel pain? (Perhaps some objects - or even animals -
experience pain for non-evolutionary reasons.)
So
what about other sensations?
Take
sexual pleasure and solving a mathematical puzzle.
The
sensation
of sexual pleasure is related to biological bodies in both human
beings and other animals. Indeed even the sensation
of solving a mathematical puzzle will have physical and biological
expressions and physical and biological substrates.
So
I'm having a problem here conceiving
of
sensations belonging to non-biological entities. Indeed I'm also
having a slightly lesser problem conceiving of experiences
belonging to non-biological entities.
Does
Everything
Embody Computations?
Just
as Rudy Rucker stretches to the words 'mind', 'sensation' and
'experience' to great lengths, so he does the same with the word
'computation'.
For
example, Rucker says that
“every
physical system can be thought of as embodying a computation”.
It
can be supposed that if a thing is a “physical system”, then
perhaps Rucker's semantic stretch isn't as extreme as it may at first
seem. That is, a physical system must include some
kind of
complexity.... Well, yes and no. A particle is certainly complex and
can be seen as a physical
system.
The same is true of Rucker's “flake of skin”. Indeed it's hard to
see what isn't
both a system and complex.
In
any case, if Rucker has already stretched the meanings of both
'computation' and 'mind', then what's to stop him doing the same with
the word 'system' too? Actually, I have more sympathy with Rucker's
use of the word 'system' than with his use of either 'mind' or
'computation'. There's far more baggage attached to the word 'mind'
than there is to the word 'system'.
Rucker
even goes on to say that “nonsimple” systems “embody
computations”. Thus:
i)
Whatever a system/thing (whether complex or simple) is, it will
embody computations.
ii)
And whatever a system/thing is, it will also have a mind; (partly?)
because it will also embody computations.
As
ever, Rudy Rucker is explicit about all this. Just as flakes of skin
have minds, so “a single electron may be capable of universal
computation”.
(At least here he uses the word 'may'.)
What
makes an electron capable of computations is (partly?) due to the
fact that it may be “afforded a steady stream of structured input”.
What does that mean? An electron is certainly causally affected
and
influenced by its environment. (Such as by fields, forces, other
particles and its anti-particle:
the positron.)
However, can these causal forces be classed as “input”? Is Rucker
committing his easy sin again by stretching words beyond their usual
meanings?
Input
can be read in two or more ways.
In
one loose sense, input can be used as a near-synonym for any causal
affect
on a system or on an entity/thing. Alternatively, we can take the
word 'input' in the way that Rucker hints/says that we should take
it. That is, input is essentially information
which is worked upon by a thing (or system) according to its own
algorithms. However, usually algorithms are carried out by human
beings or written into computer programmes by human beings.
Alternatively, information can be registered and then worked upon by
human mind-brains.
[See
the last section of my 'Integrated
Information Theory: Information'
to read the problems with overextending and overusing the words
'computation', 'information', etc.]
Hive
Minds
Rudy
Rucker says that that the
“world's
physical structures break the undivided cosmic mind into myriad of
small minds, one in each object”.
The
brain is made up of hundreds of billions
of
molecules. And each molecule within each brain has a mind.
Thus
it can be said that Rucker is claiming the following:
i)
The Cosmic Mind includes individual human minds.
ii)
Each individual human mind is dependent on a single brain.
iii)
Each individual human brain is itself made of hundreds of billions
of molecules.
iv)
Each individual molecule of each individual human brain has its own
mind.
Rucker
himself says that the human mind is a “hive mind”, one which is
“based
on the minds of the body's cells and the minds of the body's
elementary particles”.
Here
Rudy Rucker is entertaining a problem which Philip
Goff,
David
Chalmers
and other philosophers tackle: the problem which he calls “hive
minds”. This, in turn, creates the problem of the “summing”,
“constitution”
or “combination” of tiny minds (as it were) into Big Minds.
What
are the physical-to-mind and mind-to-mind connections between the
individual minds (i.e., of neurons, molecules, particles, etc.) which
make up the human mind-brain, and the human mind-brain itself? If
each thing
has its own “inner experiences” and “sensations” (according
to Rucker), then how do they sum or combine together to create the
inner experiences and sensations of a single human mind-brain? More
particularly, what are the precise connections between each thing's
(each molecule, neuron, etc.) sensations and inner experiences and
the collective inner experiences and sensations of an individual
human being or person?
Every
Thing is X
As
stated, Rudy Rucker says that every thing
has a mind, sensations, inner experiences, embodies computations,
etc. Thus we may have this often-stated formula:
If
every thing is
x,
then no thing is
x.
Actually,
this formulation doesn't always work. For example,
If
every thing is made of particles, then no thing is made of particles.
[However,
as of last week, it can be said that quarks, leptons, antiquarks,
antileptons, gauge bosons and the Higgs boson
aren't
themselves “made of particles”.]
Despite that, in some cases the formula does seem to work. As with:
If every thing has a
mind, sensations, embodies computations, etc.,
then no thing has a
mind, sensations, embodies computations, etc.
The
most un-problematic term in the above is 'computations'. Every thing
embodying computations is far easier to accept than every thing
having a mind or having sensations. Then again, there may still be an
argument of this type:
i) If every thing
embodies computations
(and if we can then
move step by step from that conditional axiom/premise - see the end
section on Rudy Rucker's “nine-step argument”),
ii)
then we will eventually arrive at this proposition: Every
thing must also have a mind and therefore sensations.
Nonetheless,
isn't this is little like saying that every thing is an athlete or a
piece of chocolate? If you stretch words so widely, then they simply
loose their point or linguistic
force.
And that's precisely what Rucker appears to do.
If
Rucker can say that particles have minds, then can I also say that
they have a sense of
humour?
And if I can't say that particles have a sense of humour, then why
can't I say that? Tell me an important and substantial difference between
saying “particles have senses of humour” and saying “particles
have minds”. Of course it can now be said that you need a mind in
order to have a sense of humour. (Though most/all of the animals
which have minds may not have a sense of humour.) Therefore isn't it
possible or even likely that particles also have a sense of humour?
The
Politics and Spirituality of Panpsychism
Perhaps
environmentalism or ecopolitics is driving Rudy Rucker's panpsychist
position. That is, perhaps he believes that upholding panpsychism
will help the environment or one's relationship with nature.
Rucker
himself is explicit about this. He writes:
“If
the rocks on my property have minds, I feel more respect for them in
their natural state. If I feel myself among friends in the
universe...”
This
is an ethical conditional.
Thus:
i)
If rocks have minds,
ii)
then...
The
problem about this is that someone else may say to Rucker:
i)
If I could fly,
ii)
then I'd be able to jump out of this window.
Or:
i)
If I were immune to heroin,
ii)
then I could take as much heroin as I liked.
Less
rhetorically and more feasibly:
i)
If animals felt as much pain as humans, and also had similar emotions,
ii)
then we/I would be “among friends”.
The
problem is that the last conditional about animals isn't entirely
speculative. Rucker's claims about rocks, scraps of paper, etc., on
the other hand, are entirely speculative. There's a lot of evidence
that animals feel pain and have emotions. There's no evidence at all
that rocks, particles, etc. have minds or experience pain/emotions.
So
helpful (or constructive) philosophical or ethical counterfactuals
must have at least one foot on the ground otherwise surely
they're a waste of time.
The
Afterlife
Rudy
Rucker also offers us a “spiritual” conditional.
He says:
“If
my body will have a mind even after I'm dead, then death matters less
to me...”
In
a sense, if Rucker's previous speculations were true, then his
position on his mind after his own death would also be true; or at
least it could possibly be true. Thus all this depends on the
Rucker's conjectures on panpsychism being true.
As
as I said about Rucker's panpsychist environmentalism, this may not
matter to him. Thus this is a reactive conditional to Rucker's
stance:
i)
If Rudy Rucker's panpsychism is all about his own emotional
well-being (as well as about having a “positive attitude” - as
it's often put - to one's environment),
ii)
then it may not matter if panpsychism is actually true.
What
may matter to Rucker are the personal and even collective results of
believing that panpsychism is true. So here's another conditional:
i)
If the consequences of believing in panpsychism are deemed to be
positive,
ii)
then perhaps the truth of panpsychism doesn't matter.
After
all, this ethical and epistemological stance has often been noted
when philosophers (such as William James) have talked about the
“efficacy of religion”.
(As
Sam Harris now talks about the efficacy
of spirituality.)
This
has also been seen to be the stance of the “late Wittgenstein”;
at least on certain readings. (Yet the man himself hardly
wrote a word on the issue.)
However,
this fast
and loose
attitude to truth would surely create a philosophical, scientific and
ethical free-for-all
if
everyone adopted it.
(Who
knows, perhaps there are – relativistic? - arguments which state
that this would be a good thing.)
After
all, I could believe that Rudy Rucker is a rock in order to bring it
about that no one will take his views seriously. I could also
believe that the Welsh are lizards in order to bring forward all
sorts of political policies against them.
So
why give Rudy Rucker free
rein
and not other people with similar absurd views? Some people may do so
simply because they like - or empathise with - Rucker's panpsychist
philosophy. Is that a good enough reason? Some other people may also
like my view that Rucker is a rock or other people's view that “the
Illuminati
rule
the world”.
**************************
Rudy
Rucker's Nine-step Argument
1)
Universal Automatism. Every physical entity is a computation.
2)
Moreover, every physical entity is a gnarly computation.
3)
Wolfram’s Principle of Computational Equivalence. Every naturally
occurring gnarly computation is a universal computation.
4)
Consciousness = Universal Computation + Self-Reflection.
5)
Any complex system can be regarded as having self-reflection.
6)
Panpsychism. Therefore every physical entity is conscious.
7)
Walker’s Thesis. Life = Universal Computation + Memory.
8)
Every physical entity has memory via its interactions with the
universe.
9)
Hylozoism. Therefore every physical object is alive.
Q.E.D.
Rudy
Rucker offers us what he calls a “nine-step
argument”
(as stated in his 'A
Formal Proof of Panpsychism and Hylozoism')
not only for panpsychism, but also for what's called “hylozoism”
– the idea that “everything is alive”.
Like
many bad arguments, Rucker's nine-step argument works at a prima
facie
level. But only at that level. It fails for the same reason that
other similar arguments fail. It fails because the (technical) terms
included in each step of the argument are either never defined; or,
if they are, they're philosophically speculative or just absurd.
Thus
if we accept the terms as they stand, then Rucker's argument has the
appearance of being an argument; and even, to some extent, a
convincing one. Yet it's philosophically and logically problematic
from the start.
More
specifically, if we take each premise as being true, then what
follows may well follow. In addition, the whole nine-step argument
appears to work at this superficial level too - and for the same
reason.
Yet
the problems start with premise 1), which is treated as an axiom.
Namely,
1)
Universal Automatism. Every physical entity is a computation.
Now
if we accept 1), all sorts of things will indeed follow. And, as with
mathematical or geometric
systems
which have non-proven/non-demonstrated or sometimes even arbitrary
axioms (axioms, by definition, have this non-argued-for status), all
sorts of things will “logically follow” from those axioms.
So
let's take each premise at a time. Firstly 1) again:
1)
Universal Automatism. Every physical entity is a computation.
Elsewhere
Rudy Rucker says that entities “embody computations”. Here he
says that “every physical entity is a computation”. That
statement hardly makes sense. No physical entity can be
a computation (though an abstract entity can). Although the word
'computation' is a noun; to
compute
is something that people, systems or things do.
It isn't what they are.
2)
Moreover, every physical entity is a gnarly computation.
The
addition of the adjective “gnarly” doesn't solve our problems or
even add anything to Rucker's argument. It may be an important factor
in Rucker's philosophy of panpsychism; though in the argument it adds
very little.
3)
Every naturally occurring gnarly computation is a universal
computation.
This
simply begs many questions which are tackled elsewhere.
4)
Consciousness = Universal Computation + Self-Reflection.
Consciousness
needn't come along with “self-reflection” or even with a self.
This acceptance of self-reflection is a very big addition. Yet within
the nine-step argument itself it's taken as a given.
So
what's behind this addition of self-reflection?
Since Rudy Rucker has switched from talk of “minds” to talk of
“consciousness”, can we now say that if he believes that rocks,
particles, scraps of paper, etc. have minds, then he must also
believe that they also have consciousness and indeed indulge in
self-reflection?
5)
Any complex system can be regarded as having self-reflection.
Can
it? Why? Rucker's argument only works on the massive assumption that
this claim – among many others – is true.
6)
Panpsychism. Therefore every physical entity is conscious.
The
other thing about Rucker's nine-step argument (other than its lack of
definitions and its philosophical absurdities) is that there are very
weak logical links between each premise.
For
example, Rucker claims that
6)
Every physical entity is conscious.
follows
from
5)
Any complex system can be regarded as having self-reflection.
The
above is a conditional embedded within Rucker's overall nine-step
argument. It works like this:
i)
If every complex physical system can be regarded as having
self-reflection,
ii)
then every complex physical system must also be conscious. (Elsewhere
Rucker also includes “nonsimple systems”.)
Put
is this bare form, this seems to work. That is, self-reflection seems
to imply (or even entail) consciousness. That is, surely you can't
have self-reflection without consciousness.
7)
Life = Universal Computation + Memory.
Here
we have another addition: memory.
As I said about self-reflection, memory needn't come along with
consciousness; though perhaps it must come along with mind. Actually,
self-reflection usually comes along with human
or animal
minds. Thus, as ever, Rucker is applying things which should only be
applied to human minds (or human consciousness) to all entities or
“systems”.
Indeed
that's Rucker's whole point.
Not
only is Rucker attempting to show that all things have minds (or
consciousness), he's also attempting to show us that all things have
human-like
minds (or human-like
consciousness). Or, at the least, he's attempting to show us that the
minds of rocks, particles, scraps of paper, etc. have
self-reflection, memory, inner experiences and sensations -
just like us!
Thus he's going way beyond more subtle and more modest forms of
panpsychism here. He's essentially heading towards pantheism or even
animism.
Thus
it's not a surprise that Rucker ends with this:
9)
Therefore every physical object is alive.
Here
again there's a certain kind of logicality of consistency. Again, if
entities have minds or consciousness, then they must also be alive;
just as most human minds also have self-reflection and memory.
8)
Every physical entity has memory via its interactions with the
universe.
Again,
if all the premises were true (as well as if we don't question the
concepts and words contained in the premises), then 8) seems to
follow from the proceeding premises. But that's no better than saying
that the conclusion “Mountains can fly” is true and logically
legitimate simply because we've constructed a set of bogus premises
which artificially lead up to that conclusion. That is, if we take
such premises as true, then “Mountains can fly” would indeed
follow.
9)
Therefore every physical object is alive.
Ditto.
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