Category Archives: Your Friday Phil

[Topics: Consciousness, Evolutionary Biology, Panpsychism, Philosophy of Mind]
A Scientific Defense of Panpsychism:

Understanding Panpsychism through Evolutionary Biology and an Analogy to Electricity

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Stones (Steve Parker) - scientific defense of panpsychism - evolution, biology, electricity

Photo by Steve Parker

Introduction:

Today’s topic is panpsychism, which is a theory in the philosophy of mind that deals with the nature of consciousness. In short, a person who holds to the truth of panpsychism is proposing, as a potential path toward solving the hard problem of consciousness, the notion that every piece of matter in existence possesses some modicum of consciousness. A conscious experience is something that happens at different scales and to different extents for certain collections of matter. The panpsychist would hold that an atom possesses a quantity of consciousness, as does a rock, a person, and a building.

If you’ve not read much into the philosophy of mind (and even if you have, depending on your intuitions), this might seem at first like a lot of nonsense. And furthermore, if you’ve been following along with this series—and so have a fair grasp of my naturalistic, phenomenological, pragmatic, and compromise-suffused personal philosophy—then you are probably going to be surprised by what I say next: I think panpsychism is a good theory. And, much like 19th-century philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, I think that anyone holding to the truth of evolutionary biology (as I clearly am) ought to think panpsychism is a good theory.

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[Topics: Consciousness, Evolutionary Biology, Panpsychism, Philosophy of Mind]
A Scientific Defense of Panpsychism:

Understanding Panpsychism through Evolutionary Biology and an Analogy to Electricity

 was last modified: May 23rd, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Biology, Ethics, Logic, Fallacy]
It’s 1483 and People Still Think This Way?

What’s Wrong with the Current-year-based Shaming of Ideas and Practices, and How to Salvage It

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Introduction:

Detail of Woodcut by P. Wohlgemuth, Adapted by André Koehne - current-year argument - Anti-vaxxers and vaccines - logic and argumentation

Detail of Woodcut by P. Wohlgemuth,
adapted by André Koehne

Imagine that someone in a disagreement with someone else opines that, “It is insane that you still think that way, in this day and age.” Now imagine that an individual on a television program exclaims, “How is this still happening?! It’s [current year]!” These two sentiments might strike you in one of a few ways. Perhaps one of them seems more plausible than the other, or you feel that one or both could be appropriate in some cases, but not others. Conversely, it may strike you that neither of these is a meaningful notion.

I intend to argue in this article, however, that both statements could be logical and that both statements could be fallacious, depending on the context. These are both forms of the ‘current-year argument.’ And, indeed, my reason for writing this article is that—while I am sympathetic to those who recognize the philosophical error being committed by most who use such arguments—I notice that folks often go too far in shooting down the concept of current-year-based-shaming of ideas and practices, when there are contexts that would make such exhortations logically sound.

First, I will give a precise account, with attention to the philosophical fundamentals of logic and argumentation, as to why these current-year statements are often (perhaps the majority of the time) meaningless and fallacious. Second, I will switch gears and describe cases wherein the statements could be legitimate, appropriate, and logically consistent.

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[Topics: Biology, Ethics, Logic, Fallacy]
It’s 1483 and People Still Think This Way?

What’s Wrong with the Current-year-based Shaming of Ideas and Practices, and How to Salvage It

 was last modified: December 5th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Philosophical Zombies, Phenomenology, Pragmatism]
Respect the Machines:

A Pragmatist Argument for the Extension of Human Rights to P-zombies and Artificial Intelligences

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Artificial Intelligence Sketch by Alejandro Zorrilal Cruz - consciousness, rights, A.I., philosophical zombies - David Chalmers, John Searle, Alan Turing, G.E. Moore

Sketch by Alejandro Zorrilal Cruz

Introduction:

In this article, I will argue that pragmatists and phenomenologists must grant to zombies (philosophical zombies) and A.I. (weak or strong artificial general intelligences) all of the rights, dignities, and protections that they currently grant to other human beings (and in some cases, other animals).

I would like to confront two potential misapprehensions immediately. The first is that this article will devolve into quibbling among various materialist, idealist, and dualist models of consciousness. This article is not about whether an artificial intelligence or somesuch can possess consciousness. Rather, this article proceeds from the fact that the hypothetical entities of sufficiently complex A.I. and philosophical zombies (both explained below) are definitively and pragmatically indistinguishable (in intellectual behavior, from the outside) from the other humans to whom we extend rights and respect.[1]

The second potential misapprehension is that I intend this article as a flippant argumentum ad absurdum against some versions of egalitarian ethics or physicalism; far from it, this article is a sincere expression of a state of affairs (at least concerning A.I.) that I see as practically inevitable.

Frankly, although I have not exhaustively sought whether this is the case, I would be enormously surprised to learn that this argument is original; plenty of political and ethical philosophers have argued for the personhood of future A.I., so it is no very great stretch to imagine that one or more of them have done so from this pragmatist and phenomenological perspective.

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[Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Philosophical Zombies, Phenomenology, Pragmatism]
Respect the Machines:

A Pragmatist Argument for the Extension of Human Rights to P-zombies and Artificial Intelligences

 was last modified: December 5th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Evolutionary Biology, Logic, Logical Fallacy]
The Microevolution Fallacy:

How a Mistake in Formal Logic Provides Otherwise Scientific Minds a Basis for Denying Evolution

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Introduction:

Alfred Russel Wallace - microevolution macroevolution - philosophy of evolution denial - I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist - Frank Turek and Norman GeislerToday’s article is fairly straightforward, as it deals with an exercise in philosophy’s bedrock: logic and argumentation. The actual content of what follows concerns the fields of biology and religious apologetics, but you don’t need any background in either in order to understand it. All that is required is an attention to the arguments themselves.

In particular, this article refutes a rebuttal that is present in religious apologetics in response to modern experimental evidence for evolution by natural selection.[1] But I’ll be focusing on the philosophical and logical angle, and leaving most of the relevant scientific responses in the footnotes.

In light of such evidence, one prominent response from those who seek to deny evolution as an account for speciation of all extant life (including humans) is to grant that such evolution occurs without granting that it occurs on a large scale; such an individual would contend that what has been proven is not evolution per se, but merely microevolution. But taking this path means committing a simple logical error by failing to follow a line of thinking to its conclusion.

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[Topics: Evolutionary Biology, Logic, Logical Fallacy]
The Microevolution Fallacy:

How a Mistake in Formal Logic Provides Otherwise Scientific Minds a Basis for Denying Evolution

 was last modified: January 21st, 2025 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Anthropic Principle, Logic, Physics]
Tautological Wisdom:

The Anthropic Principle, Carl Sagan, and Accounting for the Simplicity of the Physical Laws

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Carl Sagan Sketch by M.R.P. - The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence - Brandon Carter - Anthropic Principle, physical laws

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

Why do the mathematical relationships describing some of the physical laws of the universe seem so simple and comprehensible to us? That’s a question that has occupied scientists and philosophers for centuries. This article contains some of my musings regarding how to answer that question, inspired by some of Carl Sagan’s musings regarding how to answer that question.

I should start by saying that I am well aware that Carl Sagan was not (in the strictest sense) a philosopher. His areas of expertise, as you may well know, were biology, physics, and mathematics. But he was a scientist who, unlike many of today’s most famous science advocates, had a deep respect for and interest in the humanities.

Indeed, in Sagan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on contemporary neuroscience and anthropology, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, he writes (when concluding a section on the research results concerning the partial specialization of the two halves of the brain), “I think the most significant creative activities of our or any other human culture—legal and ethical systems, art and music, science and technology—were made possible only through the collaborative work of the left and right cerebral hemispheres” (Sagan 195).

And in that same book, Sagan references and engages with philosophical work by Plato, Augustine of Hippo, Sigmund Freud, and Henry David Thoreau (among others). I have striven in this series to stress the need for mutual respect, mutual education, and even fruitful overlap between philosophy and science, and have upheld other individuals who endorse that confluence. Carl Sagan was one such individual.

Toward the end of The Dragons of Eden, Sagan engages briefly with the topic of the comprehensibility of the universe (in a passage from which I draw a lengthy quotation below). When I first read that part of his book, it occurred to me quite suddenly that Sagan, while not spot-on in my reckoning, was pointing toward a very promising low-level explanation for the seemingly remarkable notion that the fundamental physical laws strike us as mathematically simple—or at the very least comprehensible. In order to explain my interpretation of Sagan’s thought, I would like to first briefly discuss a closely related subject: the Anthropic Principle.

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[Topics: Anthropic Principle, Logic, Physics]
Tautological Wisdom:

The Anthropic Principle, Carl Sagan, and Accounting for the Simplicity of the Physical Laws

 was last modified: August 25th, 2025 by Daniel Podgorski