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Full Idea
Halting the slide into panpsychism is the major advantage of holding that phenomenal qualities can exist unsensed.
Clarification
'Panpyschism' says consciousness exists but doesn't actually do anything. It is a side-effect of the brain.
Gist of Idea
Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed?
Source
Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.170)
Book Ref
Lockwood,Michael: 'Mind,Brain and the Quantum:The Compound 'I'' [Blackwell 1991], p.170
A Reaction
Presumably unsensed phenomenal qualities would explain the discovery that we seem to make decisions before we are conscious of what we intend to do. That result certainly implied that consciousness had no real function.
| 22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
| 5711 | The earth is and always has been an insentient being [Lucretius] |
| 5712 | Particles may have sensation, but eggs turning into chicks suggests otherwise [Lucretius] |
| 23224 | That all matter thinks is absurd, and would make each part of our bodies a distinct self-consciousness [Bentley] |
| 12698 | Every body contains a kind of sense and appetite, or a soul [Leibniz] |
| 12760 | Something rather like souls (though not intelligent) could be found everywhere [Leibniz] |
| 5510 | Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 23230 | Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte] |
| 19257 | Whatever is First must be sentient [Peirce] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2543 | Brains aren't made of anything special, suggesting panpsychism [McGinn] |
| 2424 | It is odd if experience is a very recent development [Chalmers] |