There are certainly certain systems and structures that give rise to greater capacities in/of consciousness, and Levin knows this.
For example, the targeted chemical senses of a cell, with its direction-knowing proteins, and the dna/rna and morphogenic bioelectrical system (ion channels to “speak” to neighbouring cells, etc)—versus endocrine/hormone systems which allow for widespread (multi-cellular) internal communication (and work with chemical sense cell clusters to identify stimulus from outside the body) that we see in plants, fungi, and animals—versus nervous systems which allow for nearly instant (for practical purposes) internal communication (with enervated sense cell clusters for outside body stimulus spotting), which Levin himself conceives that evolution/mutation “learned” from the previously stated, much simpler morphogenic bioelectric system most cells (neuron and non-neuron alike) use. If Levin somehow became (some sect of a) panpsychist because he realised small stuff has intent due to its mechanics, and big stuff has more, longer-lived, deeper-thought-out intent because it built its stuff on former smaller stuff, then I guess all modern biologists fall under the panpsychism umbrella (I type, facetiously).
I agree some of his language is panpsychically suspicious—and his desire to pull in buddhistic stuff, also a common red flag, but I don’t think there are enough red flags to worry (yet).
He’s using “self” as “Agent + PoV” it seems. Philosophically (I hate how big that word is), “Self” (at least, in theory of mind) is just “consciousness” (for humans: a duel-stream of experience, filtered through the limbic system, flashlit upon the lens/desktop of sensory memory and short-term/working memory) + “memories” (long-term memory, decompartmentalize-stored, prior experiences that are haphazardly recompartmentalized (“recalled”) back into the ongoing duel-streams). Not but the result of processes. An “illusion” (if you want to really piss off dualists). Yeees, “monoist” physicalism. Which seems to function perfectly fine under Levin’s prescriptions.
tl;dr eh who gives a fuck, I’m a rule utilitarian; Levin seems to prescribe towards-the-truth research and is moral about it. Thank you for the very cool read, and I hope you write more and more on these and other topical roots of reciprocity, mirroring, and altruism.
There are certainly certain systems and structures that give rise to greater capacities in/of consciousness, and Levin knows this.
For example, the targeted chemical senses of a cell, with its direction-knowing proteins, and the dna/rna and morphogenic bioelectrical system (ion channels to “speak” to neighbouring cells, etc)—versus endocrine/hormone systems which allow for widespread (multi-cellular) internal communication (and work with chemical sense cell clusters to identify stimulus from outside the body) that we see in plants, fungi, and animals—versus nervous systems which allow for nearly instant (for practical purposes) internal communication (with enervated sense cell clusters for outside body stimulus spotting), which Levin himself conceives that evolution/mutation “learned” from the previously stated, much simpler morphogenic bioelectric system most cells (neuron and non-neuron alike) use. If Levin somehow became (some sect of a) panpsychist because he realised small stuff has intent due to its mechanics, and big stuff has more, longer-lived, deeper-thought-out intent because it built its stuff on former smaller stuff, then I guess all modern biologists fall under the panpsychism umbrella (I type, facetiously).
I agree some of his language is panpsychically suspicious—and his desire to pull in buddhistic stuff, also a common red flag, but I don’t think there are enough red flags to worry (yet).
He’s using “self” as “Agent + PoV” it seems. Philosophically (I hate how big that word is), “Self” (at least, in theory of mind) is just “consciousness” (for humans: a duel-stream of experience, filtered through the limbic system, flashlit upon the lens/desktop of sensory memory and short-term/working memory) + “memories” (long-term memory, decompartmentalize-stored, prior experiences that are haphazardly recompartmentalized (“recalled”) back into the ongoing duel-streams). Not but the result of processes. An “illusion” (if you want to really piss off dualists). Yeees, “monoist” physicalism. Which seems to function perfectly fine under Levin’s prescriptions.
tl;dr eh who gives a fuck, I’m a rule utilitarian; Levin seems to prescribe towards-the-truth research and is moral about it. Thank you for the very cool read, and I hope you write more and more on these and other topical roots of reciprocity, mirroring, and altruism.
I am very interested in teleonomy now, for sure.