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Modes of Sentience: Psychedelics, Metaphysics, Panpsychism
Modes of Sentience: Psychedelics, Metaphysics, Panpsychism (2021) is an essay collection by philosopher of mind Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes.
It explores the extraordinary intersection of psychedelic experience with philosophy, the analysis of mind in relation to panpsychism, multiple dimensions of space, time, and other metaphysical matters. Keeping apace with the psychedelic renaissance in science and medicine, this collection proposes new philosophical models for discerning altered and alternate modes of sentience.
It explores the extraordinary intersection of psychedelic experience with philosophy, the analysis of mind in relation to panpsychism, multiple dimensions of space, time, and other metaphysical matters. Keeping apace with the psychedelic renaissance in science and medicine, this collection proposes new philosophical models for discerning altered and alternate modes of sentience.
- GenresPhilosophy
222 pages, Hardcover
Published December 14, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 25, 2022
Six years after the publication of Noumenautics (2016) Dr. Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes brings us a new collection of essays, Modes of Sentience, in which he continues his exploration of Psychedelic experience, Metaphysics and Consciousness. Unlike this previous book there is no exploration of Meta-Ethics.
Many of the chapters are deeply complex such as “The Great God Pan is not Dead,” which explores Whiteheads Metaphysics in relation to Psychedelics perception and “Deeper then Depth,” which explores space and sentience. I don’t want to summarise these more complex essays here. Doing so would take up to much space for this to remain a simple review and I do not think a short summary would present such ideas adequately. Instead I will briefly discuss what could be seen as the more “approachable” essays.
“The Concrescence of Dissent” is a fantastic essay exploring the development of Alfred North Whitehead within the Religious and Philosophical context of his time – showing that Whitehead stood as a heretic amongst his contemporaries. An interesting article for those both new to Whitehead and those already knowledgeable of his work.
The book also contains perhaps one of Sjöstedt-Hughes most significant essays: “The Psychedelic history of Philosophy.” Which gained almost instant popularity after its original publication in Mid-2016. This essay explores the hidden influence of Psychedelics have had on Western Philosophy exploring usage from Plato to Foucault. Here Sjöstedt-Hughes provides us an alternative view of Western Philosophy and discusses figures both well known and obscure.
One such obscure figure is Sir Humphry Davy, who is further discussed in the essay “The First Scientific Psychonaut.” Davy is best remembered for inventing the miners lamp and isolating several elements however he went on to experiment heavily with Nitrous Oxide – inspiring a poetic philosophy of Metaphysics of which Sjöstedt-Hughes explains in detail.
Modes of Sentience is a compelling and complex read. I wish not to discourage or criticise by mentioning its complexity – I enjoy a challenging read. I don’t think ideas like these can be presented simply and in many ways I feel this book continues on from the writing he presented several years earlier – Modes of Sentience brings us deeper into Sjöstedts Psychonautic voyage. But we have further to travel yet as in the past Dr. Sjöstedt-Hughes has stated that he hopes to combine the metaphysics of Whitehead with the philosophy of Nietzsche.
Many of the chapters are deeply complex such as “The Great God Pan is not Dead,” which explores Whiteheads Metaphysics in relation to Psychedelics perception and “Deeper then Depth,” which explores space and sentience. I don’t want to summarise these more complex essays here. Doing so would take up to much space for this to remain a simple review and I do not think a short summary would present such ideas adequately. Instead I will briefly discuss what could be seen as the more “approachable” essays.
“The Concrescence of Dissent” is a fantastic essay exploring the development of Alfred North Whitehead within the Religious and Philosophical context of his time – showing that Whitehead stood as a heretic amongst his contemporaries. An interesting article for those both new to Whitehead and those already knowledgeable of his work.
The book also contains perhaps one of Sjöstedt-Hughes most significant essays: “The Psychedelic history of Philosophy.” Which gained almost instant popularity after its original publication in Mid-2016. This essay explores the hidden influence of Psychedelics have had on Western Philosophy exploring usage from Plato to Foucault. Here Sjöstedt-Hughes provides us an alternative view of Western Philosophy and discusses figures both well known and obscure.
One such obscure figure is Sir Humphry Davy, who is further discussed in the essay “The First Scientific Psychonaut.” Davy is best remembered for inventing the miners lamp and isolating several elements however he went on to experiment heavily with Nitrous Oxide – inspiring a poetic philosophy of Metaphysics of which Sjöstedt-Hughes explains in detail.
Modes of Sentience is a compelling and complex read. I wish not to discourage or criticise by mentioning its complexity – I enjoy a challenging read. I don’t think ideas like these can be presented simply and in many ways I feel this book continues on from the writing he presented several years earlier – Modes of Sentience brings us deeper into Sjöstedts Psychonautic voyage. But we have further to travel yet as in the past Dr. Sjöstedt-Hughes has stated that he hopes to combine the metaphysics of Whitehead with the philosophy of Nietzsche.
March 22, 2022
This book is a defense of the philosophical position called panpsychism which claims that everything in the universe, from the atom to the human being, and even the stars themselves, is sentient, or conscious. Of course, that does not mean that everything is conscious in the way we introspectively understand our own consciousness. Sentience commonly means “able to feel things," which would seem to require some kind of consciousness, though not a socio-linguistic, intellectual kind like our own.
The book derives from the author’s (S-H’s) doctoral dissertation, earned under the supervision of Galen Strawson, the foremost advocate today for panpsychism.
S-H notes the compound of pan (everywhere) and psyche (sentience) in the name of the thesis. Sentience is defined in the text by implication to mean alive and conscious, but none of those terms are explicitly defined in the book. There is no glossary. He also does not define matter, except to equate it to physical, also not defined. It’s hard to believe that a dissertation could get away without defining its topic.
S-H states the problem as “The question is how something describable in physical, spatiotemporal terms, such as neuronal activity, can relate to something that cannot be described spatiotemporally, such as melancholy or curiosity.” (p. 2).
The problem of a something with two incompatible descriptions is neatly handled by a dual-aspect approach that does not entail panpsychism. Dual-aspectism is a kind of identity theory, saying that both aspects describe one and the same basic entity, typically, a brain.
But S-H says identity theory suffers the problem of multiple realizability. For example, a given brain state can manifest as any number of different mind states. Hence there is no clear mapping between the aspects so they cannot reasonably be said to describe the same thing.
A mental state, such as hunger, can be correlated to a human brain state or to an octopus brain state, the author says, “…thus indicating that the mental state cannot be identical to a human brain state.”
I do not see the “thusness” of his “thus.” All mental states are tightly correlated with embodied (brain) states. We know of no free-floating, disembodied hunger.
Like all mental states, hunger is experienced by a particular experiencer. That my hunger might be correlated to an octopus’s brain state is bizarre. To S-H, apparently, hunger can be self-existent, not the content of anyone’s experience, or perhaps the content of any random brain, regardless of who “has” the experience. His refutation is implausible and does not refute identity theory.
Nevertheless, S-H insists on a material foundation of the world, but insisting that all matter is sentient.
Idealism (denying the irreducible existence of matter), he says, is “darkly solipsistic.” I don’t agree. Intersubjectivity is the basis of socialization and the foundation of social order and civilization itself.
Imagine a non-intersubjective courtroom trial where each participant was aware only of their own subjectivity. Evidence would be mere opinion, and laws would be arbitrary rules without moral basis. A jury would do well to toss a coin to determine culpability, as there would be no agreed-upon facts (because any agreement requires intersubjectivity).
Idealism, the assertion of the primacy of subjective experience over matter, necessarily extends beyond the individual into intersubjectivity.
Subjectivity does not lead to solipsism. It is naïve to suppose that “subjectivity” means a windowless monad. A fair criticism of subjective idealism is to say that if it denies matter and intersubjectivity (because “others” are mere figments), then the position is oxymoronic. Anything said in defense of such a position is self-refuting.
S-H tries to overturn the intersubjective objection by stating that intersubjectivity is merely an inference from observed behavior. But that is logically invalid. To discern the meaning of observed behavior (which is required to make any inference about it) requires intersubjective intuition in the first place, so the argument is circular. An idealist position stands unrefuted by S-H.
In accord with his mentor, S-H insists that we do not know enough about what matter is to say that it could not possess the attribute of sentience. That is true, but it's not a very strong argument. It’s like saying you can’t prove that you aren’t living in a virtual reality simulation or that aliens aren’t living among humans on Earth right now. There are a lot of hypothetical things one cannot disprove.
Despite having failed to overturn competing theories, S-H simply declares that all material reality is alive and sentient.
“There is no natural delineation between what we call the living and the non-living. If we attribute sentience to a fungus, to a cell, to a virus, to an “organic molecule” then the continuation to other types of molecule with their quasi-autopoietic, systematically maintained characteristics and behavior faces no natural barrier …[therefore] the inference of sentience is extended all the way down through Nature: panpsychism.” (p. 14)
This admirably clear proposition left me pondering a reductio ad absurdum definition:
A corpse is a disagreeable kind of person.
A corpse is made of matter, and all matter is alive and sentient. The only real problem with a corpse-person is that it does not use adequate deodorant. Other than that, it’s just like everybody else.
It is only necessary to assume sentience goes all the way down if you attach it to “matter,” which most people agree does go all the way down. But why attach it so? Sentience could be a natural phenomenon like electromagnetism which manifests in certain physical contexts, and is not necessarily “pan.” Just as not all metals are magnetic, not all objects are sentient.
In conclusion, I remained unpersuaded by this book that panpsychism is the best, or even a plausible solution to the mind-body problem. That conundrum still lurks out there in the weeds, very much alive.
Sjostedt-Hughes, Peter (2021). Modes of Sentience. London: Psychedelic Press, 204 pp.
The book derives from the author’s (S-H’s) doctoral dissertation, earned under the supervision of Galen Strawson, the foremost advocate today for panpsychism.
S-H notes the compound of pan (everywhere) and psyche (sentience) in the name of the thesis. Sentience is defined in the text by implication to mean alive and conscious, but none of those terms are explicitly defined in the book. There is no glossary. He also does not define matter, except to equate it to physical, also not defined. It’s hard to believe that a dissertation could get away without defining its topic.
S-H states the problem as “The question is how something describable in physical, spatiotemporal terms, such as neuronal activity, can relate to something that cannot be described spatiotemporally, such as melancholy or curiosity.” (p. 2).
The problem of a something with two incompatible descriptions is neatly handled by a dual-aspect approach that does not entail panpsychism. Dual-aspectism is a kind of identity theory, saying that both aspects describe one and the same basic entity, typically, a brain.
But S-H says identity theory suffers the problem of multiple realizability. For example, a given brain state can manifest as any number of different mind states. Hence there is no clear mapping between the aspects so they cannot reasonably be said to describe the same thing.
A mental state, such as hunger, can be correlated to a human brain state or to an octopus brain state, the author says, “…thus indicating that the mental state cannot be identical to a human brain state.”
I do not see the “thusness” of his “thus.” All mental states are tightly correlated with embodied (brain) states. We know of no free-floating, disembodied hunger.
Like all mental states, hunger is experienced by a particular experiencer. That my hunger might be correlated to an octopus’s brain state is bizarre. To S-H, apparently, hunger can be self-existent, not the content of anyone’s experience, or perhaps the content of any random brain, regardless of who “has” the experience. His refutation is implausible and does not refute identity theory.
Nevertheless, S-H insists on a material foundation of the world, but insisting that all matter is sentient.
Idealism (denying the irreducible existence of matter), he says, is “darkly solipsistic.” I don’t agree. Intersubjectivity is the basis of socialization and the foundation of social order and civilization itself.
Imagine a non-intersubjective courtroom trial where each participant was aware only of their own subjectivity. Evidence would be mere opinion, and laws would be arbitrary rules without moral basis. A jury would do well to toss a coin to determine culpability, as there would be no agreed-upon facts (because any agreement requires intersubjectivity).
Idealism, the assertion of the primacy of subjective experience over matter, necessarily extends beyond the individual into intersubjectivity.
Subjectivity does not lead to solipsism. It is naïve to suppose that “subjectivity” means a windowless monad. A fair criticism of subjective idealism is to say that if it denies matter and intersubjectivity (because “others” are mere figments), then the position is oxymoronic. Anything said in defense of such a position is self-refuting.
S-H tries to overturn the intersubjective objection by stating that intersubjectivity is merely an inference from observed behavior. But that is logically invalid. To discern the meaning of observed behavior (which is required to make any inference about it) requires intersubjective intuition in the first place, so the argument is circular. An idealist position stands unrefuted by S-H.
In accord with his mentor, S-H insists that we do not know enough about what matter is to say that it could not possess the attribute of sentience. That is true, but it's not a very strong argument. It’s like saying you can’t prove that you aren’t living in a virtual reality simulation or that aliens aren’t living among humans on Earth right now. There are a lot of hypothetical things one cannot disprove.
Despite having failed to overturn competing theories, S-H simply declares that all material reality is alive and sentient.
“There is no natural delineation between what we call the living and the non-living. If we attribute sentience to a fungus, to a cell, to a virus, to an “organic molecule” then the continuation to other types of molecule with their quasi-autopoietic, systematically maintained characteristics and behavior faces no natural barrier …[therefore] the inference of sentience is extended all the way down through Nature: panpsychism.” (p. 14)
This admirably clear proposition left me pondering a reductio ad absurdum definition:
A corpse is a disagreeable kind of person.
A corpse is made of matter, and all matter is alive and sentient. The only real problem with a corpse-person is that it does not use adequate deodorant. Other than that, it’s just like everybody else.
It is only necessary to assume sentience goes all the way down if you attach it to “matter,” which most people agree does go all the way down. But why attach it so? Sentience could be a natural phenomenon like electromagnetism which manifests in certain physical contexts, and is not necessarily “pan.” Just as not all metals are magnetic, not all objects are sentient.
In conclusion, I remained unpersuaded by this book that panpsychism is the best, or even a plausible solution to the mind-body problem. That conundrum still lurks out there in the weeds, very much alive.
Sjostedt-Hughes, Peter (2021). Modes of Sentience. London: Psychedelic Press, 204 pp.
April 9, 2022
Favourite chapters:
III. The Concrescence of Dissent:
Whitehead as Religious, Scientific, Philosophic
Heretic
V. The Psychedelic Influence on Philosophy
VII. The Great God Pan is Not Dead: Alfred North Whitehead and the Psychedelic Mode of Perception
IX. The First Scientific Psychonaut: Sir Humphry Davy
III. The Concrescence of Dissent:
Whitehead as Religious, Scientific, Philosophic
Heretic
V. The Psychedelic Influence on Philosophy
VII. The Great God Pan is Not Dead: Alfred North Whitehead and the Psychedelic Mode of Perception
IX. The First Scientific Psychonaut: Sir Humphry Davy
August 9, 2024
Now THIS book on consciousness was #3 on my journey down the consciousness rabbit hole. I needed to read Conscious by Annaka Harrisa and Being You by Anil Seth plus a bit of caffeine while sipping the chapters over several weeks.
One of my favorite lines (there were many):
“Demetepts include more than mere imaginations: they include dreams (lucid or not), episodic memories, hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations, psychedelic landscapes, subconscious phenomenon, and other ‘mystical states.’”
I’ll admit, I did a lot of looking up of terms, but enjoyed the poetic nature of many of them like “demetepts” reminded me instantly of Harry Potter dementors (couldn’t help it).
Thank you Peter for such a delightful course in modes of sentience. Your book is quite marked up.
One of my favorite lines (there were many):
“Demetepts include more than mere imaginations: they include dreams (lucid or not), episodic memories, hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations, psychedelic landscapes, subconscious phenomenon, and other ‘mystical states.’”
I’ll admit, I did a lot of looking up of terms, but enjoyed the poetic nature of many of them like “demetepts” reminded me instantly of Harry Potter dementors (couldn’t help it).
Thank you Peter for such a delightful course in modes of sentience. Your book is quite marked up.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews