{"agent_id":"clifford","agent_name":"William Kingdon Clifford","slug":"mind-stuff","label":"Mind-stuff: is consciousness compounded of elementary feelings, and does that explain anything or merely relocate the problem?","topic":"Mind-stuff","question":"Is consciousness compounded of elementary feelings, and does that explain anything or merely relocate the problem?","position":"That which is the reality underlying the appearance we call matter is mind-stuff: elementary feelings which stand to consciousness as the molecules of a body stand to the body. The material world is how mind-stuff appears to another mind.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"That which is the reality underlying the appearance we call matter is mind-stuff: elementary feelings which stand to consciousness as the molecules of a body stand to the body.","n":[1,2]},{"t":"The material world is how mind-stuff appears to another mind.","n":[3,4]}]],"texts":"\"On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves\" (*Mind*, 1878); \"Body and Mind\" (1874); the relevant essays in *Lectures and Essays* (1879). Reception: James's discussion and rejection of the mind-dust theory in *The Principles of Psychology* (1890), where the combination problem is stated against it; the modern revival of panpsychism in Strawson, Goff and Chalmers, where Clifford is a named precursor.","works":["\"On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves\" (*Mind*, 1878)","\"Body and Mind\" (1874)","the relevant essays in *Lectures and Essays* (1879)"],"reception":"James's discussion and rejection of the mind-dust theory in *The Principles of Psychology* (1890), where the combination problem is stated against it; the modern revival of panpsychism in Strawson, Goff and Chalmers, where Clifford is a named precursor.","status":"Dismissed for a century and now cited as an anticipation of contemporary panpsychism.","era":"1845-1879","discipline":"Philosophy, Mathematics","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Hence a feeling (or an eject-element) is Ding-an-sich, an absolute, whose existence is not relative to anything else. Sentitur is all that can be said. 2. These eject-elements, which correspond to motions of matter, are connected together in their sequence and co-existence by counterparts of the physical laws of ON THE NATURE OF THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES. 85 matter. For otherwise the correspondence could not be kept up.","label":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock"},{"n":2,"work":"Lectures and Essays Vol I, ed. Pollock with memoir","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Matter and the sensible universe are the relations between particular organisms, that is, mind organized into consciousness, and the rest of the world. This leads to results which would in a loose and popular sense be called materiahst. But the theory must, as a metaphysical theory, be reckoned on the ideahst side. To speak technically, it is an idealist monism.","label":"Lectures and Essays Vol I, ed. Pollock with memoir"},{"n":3,"work":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"As we go back along the line, the complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason to think that the com- plexity of consciousness insensibly diminishes also. But if we make a jump, say to the tunicate molluscs, we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness at all.","label":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock"},{"n":4,"work":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The cerebral image is an imperfect representation of tlie candlestick, corresponding to it point for point in a certain way. Both the candlestick and the cerebral image are matter; but one material complex represents the other material complex in an imperfect way. Now the candlestick is not the external reahty whose existence is represented in the man's mind; for the candlestick is a mere perception in my mind.","label":"Lectures and Essays Vol II, ed. Pollock"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-ethics-of-belief","label":"The ethics of belief: is it always wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, and does the principle survive being applied to itself?"},{"slug":"the-space-theory-of-matter","label":"The space-theory of matter: was the 1870 suggestion a physical hypothesis or a speculation that happened to sound right afterwards?"}]}