Panpsychism in
the West (Skrbina)
Panpsychism as a concept, it may be
proposed, has three essential characteristics: (1) Objects have experiences for
themselves; that is, the mind-like quality is something internal to or
inherent in the object. (2) There is a sense in which this experience is singular;
to the extent that a structure of matter and energy that we call an object is
one thing, this oneness is reflected in a kind of unitary mental experience.
(3) An object is a particular configuration of mass/energy, and therefore any
configuration or system of mass/energy should qualify in the same sense.6 Thus,
a functional definition of panpsychism might be “All objects, or systems of
objects, possess a singular inner experience of the world around them.” Such a
definition is useful while avoiding some of the more contentious (and
ambiguous) words that one finds in other definitions. (16)
Definitions of panpsychism are one source
of confusion; synonyms are another. The philosophical literature contains a
number of terms that are related to panpsychism. These terms, in no particular
order, are ‘animism’, ‘hylozoism’, ‘panbiotism’, ‘pansensism’, ‘pantheism’,
‘panentheism’, and ‘panexperientialism’. (19)
[I]n 1982 the physicist Bohm posited that
“in a way, nature is alive . . . all the way to the depths” (39).
2.1 Ancient
Greece and the “Hylozoist” Tradition—The Pre-Socratics
In the context of the present discussion,
pre-Christian-era Greece may be divided into three periods: that of the
pre-Socratics, that of Plato and Aristotle, and that of the Hellenists. These
groups of thinkers had unique and increasingly sophisticated perspectives on
panpsychism. Pre-Socratic philosophy covered a range of roughly 200 years, from
the emergence of Thales’ philosophy (circa 600 BCE) to the death of Socrates
(399 BCE). There were a dozen or so major philosophers1 from the Greek world in
these two centuries, and we traditionally group them into these roughly
chronological subdivisions.
Milesians: Thales (625–545 BCE), Anaximander
(610–540 BCE), Anaximenes (585–525 BCE)
Mystic: Pythagoras (570–495 BCE)
Eleatics: Parmenides (545–460 BCE), Zeno of Elea
(505–450 BCE), Heraclitus (505–450 BCE)
Pluralists: Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE), Empedocles
(495–435 BCE)
Atomists: Leucippus (485–425 BCE), Democritus
(460–370 BCE)2
Perhaps with the exception of Anaximander
and Zeno, all these men advanced ideas relevant to an inquiry into panpsychism.
All were, to some degree, panpsychists.
What must be examined, though, is precisely
what quality these ancient Greeks attributed to the basic substances of the
world. The term ‘hylozoism’ indicates that this quality is life (zoe), but it is not such a straightforward
matter. In fact, to call them hylozoist is misleading; none of them actually
used the word ‘zoe’ to describe this
mysterious quality of all matter.3 Thus, any reference to this notion of life
or to the Greek conception of hylozoism must be qualified. As is elaborated
below, the Greeks were more careful and precise in their attribution of a
spiritual or mental quality to all matter, or to all substance.
The Milesians viewed the natural world as
having three fundamental qualities:
(1) as a rational order, governed by a logos, a system of
coherence and comprehensibility,
(2) as evolutionary, in the sense that things moved through
the world and developed or changed over time, toward some kind of telos,
or end, and
(3) as inherently
animated.4
The rationality of
their philosophy was manifest as materialist monism—they each sought to reduce the
plurality of things to a single underlying substance or entity. This single underlying substance had
certain characteristics, foremost of which was its capability of producing the movement, life, and soul that were apparent
in the everyday world. If everything is one, and if that one yields spontaneity and
life, then a reasonable conclusion is that everything possesses these qualities
to some degree. For the Milesians this was the most compelling and intuitive
alternative. If one were to disagree, one would assume the burden of proof to
show, at least, (a) why some things have life and other do not and (b) how such
a phenomenon as life might plausibly emerge over the course of time. Apparently
no one in ancient Greece argued for such a position. Hylozoism was simply
accepted as a brute condition of reality. As Guthrie pointed out (1962–1981,
volume 1: 145), “the union of matter and spirit in a material substance . . .
is [for the Milesians] an assumption that raises no doubts and calls for no
argument or defense.”
Consider Thales, who was widely known for
his panpsychist views. That he is also regarded as the first true Western
philosopher demonstrates something of the degree to which panpsychism was an
integral part of the early Western worldview. Thales is best known for his
theory of water as the cosmic arche, the fundamental principle underlying all material
things. But there are two significant fragments on Thales, and they give some
idea of his panpsychist leanings. Both fragments are found in Aristotle’s De anima. First, we have the famous passage on the
lodestone (magnet):
. . . Thales, according to what is related
of him, seems to have regarded the soul as something endowed with the power of
motion, if indeed he said that the lodestone has a soul because it moves iron.
(405a19)
Here we have two distinct ideas: that the
thing called ‘soul’ is defined as that which moves or produces motion, and that
the lodestone itself has a soul because it can attract iron. In the original
Greek, Aristotle (and presumably Thales) used the word ‘psyche’, commonly
translated as soul. ‘Psyche’ has other meanings, though, including spirit,
life, breath, and mind. The psyche was associated with the life energy of
living things, with the divine animating spirit that produced motion in
physical objects, and with the activity of the mind. At this early stage in
philosophy there was not yet the distinction between “having a soul,” “being
alive,” and “possessing a mind”; all these were treated more or less as
equivalent.5 To the pre-Socratics, psyche was virtually as much mind-like as it
was soul-like. In the first book of De anima Aristotle takes pains to note that most
everyone before him, through and including Plato, did not clearly distinguish
between soul and mind (nous). For example, we find the following passage on
Democritus: “Soul and mind are, he says, one and the same thing.” (405a10) And
Anaxagoras only “seems to distinguish between soul and mind, but in practice he
treats them as a single substance” (405a13). From this perspective we can
propose a more complete definition of ‘psyche’: the energy that animates and
produces movement in all things, including the movement of thoughts and ideas.
Humans and animals possessed psyche, and in
a monist universe anything else that demonstrated the qualities of “aliveness”
(e.g. self-moving, or causing motion) possessed it too. The lodestone clearly
showed that it had the power to move other metal objects, something that must
have been a rather miraculous event to the ancients. And yet the lodestone was
obviously in many ways just a rock like any other. That some rocks exhibited greater
powers of psyche than others was comparable to the notion that humans were just
animals of a certain type that exhibited distinctive noetic powers. Apparently
Thales concluded that all things possessed psyche, to a greater or lesser
degree. We see this clearly in the second major fragment: Certain thinkers say
that soul is intermingled in the whole universe, and it is perhaps for that
reason that Thales came to the opinion that all things are full of gods. (De anima, 411a7) Aristotle (again presumably
following Thales) used the word theon, which is translated as gods. The power of psyche was
seen as a god-like, divine power, or perhaps as the power of the gods
themselves. There are two possible explanations of Thales’ choice of this word:
(1) It may have been a throwback to the mythological and pantheistic tradition
of Homer and Hesiod. (2) It may have been merely a linguistic convention;
perhaps it made more sense to him to say that “things are full of gods (theon)” than that “things are full of souls (psychein).”6 And even from the use of ‘psyche’ in
Aristotle’s sentence (“soul is intermingled . . .”) one can see that “gods” and
“souls” were seen as roughly equivalent, or at least intimately linked.
Furthermore, an essential quality of a god
is that it is a single being, a unitary presence, with a singular sense of
identity and personality. Contrasted with a relatively amorphous, diffused
power like psyche, one may conclude that Thales believed that all things possessed
a singular sense of identity, which was simultaneously of a mind-like nature.
The essence
of Thales’ argument
for panpsychism is this: Material objects (humans, animals, wind, sea, magnets,
heavenly bodies) have the power of motion, either of themselves or with respect
to surrounding things. The material objects we know most intimately—our own bodies—possess an
energy, called ‘psyche’, that accounts for our power. Under the assumption that
the world is rational and that humans are not ontologically unique, a
reasonable conclusion is that all things possess some degree of motive power7
and hence some degree of the god-like psyche. This argument makes the case for
panpsychism by appealing to powers of a
particular kind that are inherent in material objects, then relies on analogy
with human experience. This Argument
by Indwelling Powers is the first of several arguments for panpsychism that we find
throughout history.
Like Thales, Anaximenes argued for a monist
worldview, but with an underlying principle of air (pneuma). The word
‘pneuma’ has an interesting array of meanings that are strikingly close to
those of ‘psyche’: Besides air, it also can mean breath, soul, spirit, or mind.
Whereas the primary meaning of ‘psyche’ is mind/soul, the primary meaning of
‘pneuma’ seems to be breath, as in “breath of life.” For Anaximenes, the breath
of life was the living, animating principle of all things. This again was a
logical conclusion. In every animal, breath equals life: no air, no life; no
life, no breath. And air seems to be everywhere, as does motion, so it is not
unreasonable to argue that pneuma is the underlying principle of the cosmos.
Tetractys
The tetractys is one of the symbols in sacred geometry that is made very
interesting by its complex layers of meaning. It is a design that is very
mathematical in structure and yet holds mystical significance among the
Pythagoreans and the followers of the Kabbalah.
Basically, the tetractys is a triangle composed of ten points rising
upward. The Greek philosopher and
mathematician Pythagoras once called the tetractys the symbol of the musical, arithmetic and geometric ratios upon which
the universe is built. For Pythagoras and his followers, each line of
the tetractys holds these meanings:
·
First row. The
first row is made of a single point. This point is the divine dimension
from which everything is created. Because of the nature of this point, it
is usually associated with the virtue of wisdom.
·
Second row. The
second row is a line connecting two points and signifies the first
dimension. For the Pythagoreans, the second row represents “Neikos” or
Strife. Strife is the power of division and is often associated with the
virtues of movement and impulse. Movement and impulse, in turn, gives
birth to courage and strength.
·
Third row. The
third row is a line connecting three points. It is a representation of
the second dimension and of “Philotes” or Harmony. Harmony is the
marriage of physical beauty and mental balance.
·
Fourth row. The
four points connected in the fourth row indicates the four elements of the
ancient world: earth, air, fire and water.
Pythagoreans used to swear
upon the tetractys in their hopes of attaining purity of mind and harnessing
its power.
Relation to Kaballah…
http://www.ka-gold-jewelry.com/p-articles/tetractis.php
http://www.slideshare.net/virajoshi/sacred-geometry-7798937
TETRAKTIS
DRAGON TRIANGLE BOOK OF SAINT GERMAIN
A Treasurehouse of Lore
http://trianglebook.weebly.com/
The music system of Pythagoras was based on the
Tetraktys
The Quadrivium
was first formulated and taught by Pythagoras as the Tetraktys around 500 BC…it
arises out of the most revered of all subjects. Number. The first of these
disciplines we call Arithmetic. The second is Geometry or the order of space as
Number in Space. The third is Harmony which for Plato meant Number in Time. The
fourth is Astronomy or Number in Space and Time.
********************************************
http://soundpossibilities.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/tetraktys-in-seed-of-life/
http://soundpossibilities.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/teta.gif
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAukInaCgas
Platonic Forms à relation to elements…
*******************************************************
PANPSYCHISM IN THE WEST --> MOVE TO PARMENIDES
Parmenides argued ingeniously that only
Being is possible and therefore only Being exists. Furthermore, since change
represents the coming into being of some thing or state that did not previously
exist, and this is impossible (because “only Being exists”), change is
impossible. Rather, what appears to be change is an illusion. This was a
radical view; it contradicted the widely held belief that motion was a central
characteristic of the world.
wide range of interpretations and
translations. The first is fragment 3, transliterated from the Greek as “To gar auto
noein estin te kai einai.” Among many translations, one finds the following:
For it is the same thing to think and to
be. (Freeman 1948: 42)
For thought and being are the same thing.
(Smith 1934: 15)
What is . . . is identical with the thought
that recognizes it. (Lloyd 1959: 327)
For thinking and being is the same. (Cleve
1969: 528)
For the same things can be thought of and
can be. (Barnes 1987: 132)
To think is the same as the thought that It
Is. (Freeman 1948: 44)
Therefore thinking, and that by reason of
which thought exists, are one and the same thing. (Smith 1934: 16–17)
Thinking and the object of thought are the
same. (Cleve 1969: 537)
The same thing are thinking and a thought
that it is. (Barnes 1987: 135)
Cleve is sensitive to the panpsychist
implications in these two fragments. He observes that Being, though technically
unextended and incorporeal, is yet permeated by thought: “. . . being itself .
. . is inextensive
incorporeal thinking that is present whole and undivided
in each and every part of seeming space” (1969: 536). He adds that “the only being
is consciousness, noema, that, however, must not be split into act of thinking
and content of thinking” (ibid.: 537). Thus, it seems clear that thought
permeates Being, that anything that exists must also be said to be identical
with thought. Since the metaphysical status of distinct things is not clear, we
cannot determine the degree to which Parmenides’ view is true panpsychism. Yet,
in view of the “hylozoist” milieu into which he was born, one certainly cannot
rule out a panpsychist interpretation. Parmenides’ notion that thought is
identical to being anticipates the discussion in Sophist in which Plato puts forth a similar view:
that (the Form of) Being possesses the qualities of “life, mind, and soul.”
Plato, as we know, held Parmenides in high regard, and thus it is not
surprising to find elements of his ontology.
