Really enjoyable read, very interesting to see how deep you've gone into the topic. I'm curious as to whether you see non-local consciousness as distinct from dualism in some way, or whether the distinction is purely semantic?
Really good question Robin. I think the terminology in this space can be quite slippery! I would tend to see dualism as a form of non-local consciousness, but I guess that there is no reason in principle why the "mind stuff" couldn't live within the brain with no spatial extent. Equally, some of the materialist theories are wave based, so this introduces an element of spatial extent. I think that the broad categories allow for a spectrum of ideas across material/non-material local/non-local axes. As you mentioned in your talk, many of the leading proponents drift between these categories: Philip Goff started with Panpsychism and is now Christian I believe (although possibly still a panpsychist); you mentioned Annaka Harris moving more to the idealist space; and I believe that Bernardo Kastrup has embraced IIT, but largely as a mathematical framework for his own ideas, rather than shifting to a materialist view. It's a minefield! Fascinating though.
Words are a nightmare, it's often half the battle!
Philip Goff is still panpsychist, and he does report this influenced his conversion to Christianity.
I definitely wouldn't consider these theories to be mutual exclusive, and it's possible that they're all making progress on the issue from different angles and there will be ways to synthesise elements of them to create a more complete theory over time.
I did, at one point, toy with the idea that consciousness could be a dimension (which doesn't commit to an ontological status of fundamental or emergent) after Anaka Harris made the analogy of it to spacetime, in that the material world warps it to create localised manifestations of consciousness. In the and sense that electromagnetism is sometimes argued to be gravitational effects across a 5th dimension. This is highly speculative, of course, and I don't have the requisite understanding of physics to assess it, but I find it conceptually interesting.
I think you are right - there is a synthesis to be had. I wonder about whether there is mileage in combining some non-local theories with Penrose and Hameroff's ideas as the mechanism for interaction with the physical brain. I gather that Bernardo Kastrup is still an idealist even though he is looking at IIT, which is inherently a materialist approach. So definitely, there is mileage for cross-fertilisation.
Really enjoyable read, very interesting to see how deep you've gone into the topic. I'm curious as to whether you see non-local consciousness as distinct from dualism in some way, or whether the distinction is purely semantic?
Really good question Robin. I think the terminology in this space can be quite slippery! I would tend to see dualism as a form of non-local consciousness, but I guess that there is no reason in principle why the "mind stuff" couldn't live within the brain with no spatial extent. Equally, some of the materialist theories are wave based, so this introduces an element of spatial extent. I think that the broad categories allow for a spectrum of ideas across material/non-material local/non-local axes. As you mentioned in your talk, many of the leading proponents drift between these categories: Philip Goff started with Panpsychism and is now Christian I believe (although possibly still a panpsychist); you mentioned Annaka Harris moving more to the idealist space; and I believe that Bernardo Kastrup has embraced IIT, but largely as a mathematical framework for his own ideas, rather than shifting to a materialist view. It's a minefield! Fascinating though.
Words are a nightmare, it's often half the battle!
Philip Goff is still panpsychist, and he does report this influenced his conversion to Christianity.
I definitely wouldn't consider these theories to be mutual exclusive, and it's possible that they're all making progress on the issue from different angles and there will be ways to synthesise elements of them to create a more complete theory over time.
I did, at one point, toy with the idea that consciousness could be a dimension (which doesn't commit to an ontological status of fundamental or emergent) after Anaka Harris made the analogy of it to spacetime, in that the material world warps it to create localised manifestations of consciousness. In the and sense that electromagnetism is sometimes argued to be gravitational effects across a 5th dimension. This is highly speculative, of course, and I don't have the requisite understanding of physics to assess it, but I find it conceptually interesting.
I think you are right - there is a synthesis to be had. I wonder about whether there is mileage in combining some non-local theories with Penrose and Hameroff's ideas as the mechanism for interaction with the physical brain. I gather that Bernardo Kastrup is still an idealist even though he is looking at IIT, which is inherently a materialist approach. So definitely, there is mileage for cross-fertilisation.