In his post “Why
Panpsychism is the Jedi Philosophy,” BigThink.com columnist Scott
Hendricks starts out by describing the Force, the mysterious cosmic
energy source depicted in the Star Wars movies. Here is how
Obi-Wan Kenobi first describes the Force in the first Star Wars
movie:
The Force is what gives
a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things.
It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.
Yoda
the Jedi master of the Force explains it this way: “Life creates
it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us."
After describing the Star
Wars depiction of the force, Hendricks
says, “There
is a name for this philosophy in real life, panpsychism.”
But Hendricks errs. The depiction of the Force in the Star
Wars
movies is not any statement of the philosophy of panpsychism.
Panpsychism
is the idea that all matter is to some degree conscious. But the Star
Wars idea of the Force
is not an idea about matter. It is an idea about a cosmic energy. No
one in the Star Wars
movies ever makes the panpsychist claim that all matter is conscious,
nor does any such character claim that any
nonliving material thing is conscious.
Hendricks
incorrectly describes how the Force is depicted in the Star
Wars movies. He tells
us, “While only some things, notably Force-sensitive characters,
can manipulate the Force, every object in the universe appears
to be able to interact with the Force.” He provides a link to try
to back up this claim, which merely takes us to the first description
of the Force in the Star Wars movies:
The Force is what gives
a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things.
It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.
But
that quote does not at all back up the claim that “every object in
the universe appears to be able to interact with the Force,” an
idea never presented in the Star
Wars movies. To the
contrary, the two quotes above (by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda) tell us
that the force is created specifically by living
things, not by material things in general.
Poster of the latest Star Wars movie
In
the Star Wars
movies, the Force is associated with psychic powers such as telepathy
and psychokinesis. The masters of the Force known as Jedi can
influence the minds of others through thought suggestion, as Obi-Wan
Kenobi does when he gets out of a jam by telepathically influencing
the mind of a security guard. A Jedi can also sense distant important
events by sensing a disturbance in the Force, as Obi-Wan does when he
detects a “great disturbance in the Force” when the Death Star
destroys a distant planet. A Jedi can even use the force to move
objects such as a light saber. Someone can also use the Force to
achieve things he could never normally do, such as when Luke
Skywalker uses the Force to help him perform the difficult task of
blowing up the Death Star.
None
of this has anything to do with panpsychism, and panpsychism is not
associated with any claims or beliefs about psychic powers.
Panpsychism has never been associated with any types of claims about
a cosmic force, mysterious or non-mysterious.
From
the table below we can see there is basically nothing that
panpsychism has in common with the Star
Wars concept of the
Force.
Panpsychism | Star Wars concept of the Force | |
Make a claim about matter? | Yes | No |
Claims all matter is conscious? | Yes | No |
Makes a claim about a cosmic energy field? | No | Yes |
Makes a claim about psychic powers (telepathy, psychokinesis)? | No | Yes |
Differentiates between living and non-living things? | No | Yes (the Force is described as a product of all living things, not all matter) |
Suggests some cosmic will? | No | Yes (“will of the Force” in episode 1) |
Associated with post-mortal survival? | No | Maybe (ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi twice seen) |
Although
the Star Wars movies tell us nothing about how the Force might relate
to life-after-death, the movies hint that there may be such a
relation. In Episode 4 we hear the voice of the deceased Obi-Wan
Kenobi telling Luke Skywalker to “use the force.” In Episode 5 we
see the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi appearing to Luke Skywalker. In
Episode 6 we the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader and Yoda all
appearing to Luke Skywalker. Since these were all great masters of
the Force, we can infer some relation between the Force and their
post-mortal survival.
Hendrick's
attempt to glamorize panpsychism by calling it “the Jedi philosphy”
is erroneous. If we want to find philosophical ideas that
partially mirror the metaphysics of Star
Wars, the two below are
much better matches:
Vitalism:
Vitalism
is the idea that there is some mysterious life force involved with
all living things. This sounds a little like the claim twice made in
the Star Wars
movies that the Force is created by all living things.
Spiritualism:
Spiritualism
is the idea that people
survive death, and can communicate with the living. When the deceased
Obi-Wan Kenobi communicates to Luke Skywalker in Episode 4 and
Episode 5 of the Star
Wars series, this is
very much a fictional expression of the idea of spiritualism.
Panpsychism is largely an attempt to help deal with the problem that there is no apparent reason why the neurons in a brain could ever generate a mind such as humans have. The panpsychist kind of tells us that such a thing is not so unthinkable, because every little neuron (and every other little thing) is a tiny bit conscious. The problem is that similar reasoning would lead us to believe that the boulders at the seashore or the trees in the forest have bigger minds than we have, since they have even more material particles than are in our brains. A better way to deal with the "How could minds arise from brains?" problem is to simply conclude: they don't. The claim that minds arise from brains has been asserted countless times, but never proven. There are good reasons for doubting such a claim, as you will sometimes read about on this blog.
Panpsychism is largely an attempt to help deal with the problem that there is no apparent reason why the neurons in a brain could ever generate a mind such as humans have. The panpsychist kind of tells us that such a thing is not so unthinkable, because every little neuron (and every other little thing) is a tiny bit conscious. The problem is that similar reasoning would lead us to believe that the boulders at the seashore or the trees in the forest have bigger minds than we have, since they have even more material particles than are in our brains. A better way to deal with the "How could minds arise from brains?" problem is to simply conclude: they don't. The claim that minds arise from brains has been asserted countless times, but never proven. There are good reasons for doubting such a claim, as you will sometimes read about on this blog.
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