Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness by Philip Goff

Mar 10, 2022 BlackOxford rated it did not like it

Shelves: science, british, psychology

An Aspiring Scientific Revolutionary

Philip Goff is a man on a mission. He wants to assure us that this mysterious human characteristic we call consciousness will eventually be made much less mysterious. And he wants us to know that the way it will be made less mysterious is by a scientific revolution that he is leading. Apparently he thinks of himself as the Darwin of consciousness, informing the rest of us of a reality we have failed to grasp.

Goff’s pitch is to resurrect the ‘cogito ergo sum’ o ...more

flag 57 likes · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2020 Katia N rated it really liked it

Shelves: consciousness

Very enjoyable popular science book on the nature of consciousness. The author is a professional philosopher and a big supporter of panpsychism. Obscured by materialism for the last 100 years, this view is currently becoming more and more fashionable. And as the author puts it, now represents a considerable minority.

The book is very accessible, starts from zero knowledge of the problem and leads the reader through 3 main views on the nature of consciousness. The author is good storyteller and c ...more

flag 39 likes · Like · see review

Nov 14, 2019 Glenn Rowe rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Starts off well with a good description of past and present theories of consciousness, but once panpsychism is introduced, things start to go downhill. Materialism is criticized because it cannot explain the qualitative aspects of consciousness, and dualism because there is no neurological evidence of a link between the brain and a disembodied mind. Fair enough. But what hard evidence is there that everything in the universe is conscious? Indeed, how could we ever determine this? If we're not al ...more

flag 28 likes · Like · see review

Dec 11, 2019 Ryan Boissonneault rated it really liked it

Consciousness is one of the deepest and most perplexing unresolved mysteries of the universe and it would take a fool to believe that we already have a conclusive explanation or that we even know what an explanation would look like. If we’re honest, we can’t even be sure the problem is soluble at all, or whether it is best addressed through better neuroscience or through a conceptual reimagining of the universe.

So the place I start when rating books like this is in regard to whether or not the ...more

flag 21 likes · Like · see review

Jun 17, 2021 Jay Green rated it liked it

A missed opportunity to present a convincing case for panpsychism. Having read Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, Stuart Kauffman and several other authors who argue for various forms of panpsychism, I was sympathetic to the idea and hopeful to learn more about the unresolved issues arising from this worldview, particularly that of microconsciousnesses and the construction of more complex consciousnesses from less complex. Are molecules conscious, for example? Metals? All organisms? Kidneys and splee A missed opportunity to present a convincing case for panpsychism. Having read Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, Stuart Kauffman and several other authors who argue for various forms of panpsychism, I was sympathetic to the idea and hopeful to learn more about the unresolved issues arising from this worldview, particularly that of microconsciousnesses and the construction of more complex consciousnesses from less complex. Are molecules conscious, for example? Metals? All organisms? Kidneys and spleens? The most obvious difficulty, pointed out by other reviewers, is that we have no way of knowing, from the "outside," whether objects have any internal life at all, hence the philosophical zombie or p-zombie concept and the problem of other minds. Consequently, the solution that Goff provides (perhaps science will generate the evidence) manages only to put the problem on the long finger.

Most remarkably, however, this was a book on consciousness that made no mention whatsoever of the continental phenomenologists who, to my mind, have largely resolved many of the issues relating to free will and consciousness decades ago, individuals whom analytic philosophers and materialists studiously avoid or pretend not to understand when presenting their variations on materialism. There is no mention here of Husserl's Ideas, of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, or of Sartre's early works The Imagination and The Imaginary, all of which are salient, let alone Sartre's Being and Nothingness, a handy introduction to the idea of free will if one was ever needed. Indeed, the results of the renowned Libet experiment that is cited here as an argument against free will were anticipated by a good three decades by Sartre in his distinction between thetic and non-thetic (or reflective and pre-reflective) consciousness. The results found by Libet arise from a necessary structure of consciousness, at least, as Sartre understands and describes it, and therefore should have been anticipated in the experiment and presented as evidence for free will rather than determinism: but we can't expect materialists to understand that, can we?

Although I am not a dualist, I was unconvinced by Goff's argument against it that the brain displays no extraordinary evidence of intervention by an immaterial mind. I would argue to the contrary that the brain exhibits such behaviour all the time. Whenever I imagine running, for example, the same neurons that are involved in the actual activity of running spring to life because my imagining involves, to a small extent, sensing what it would be like to run, the bodily feeling of running. I am not preparing to run, I am simply imagining the sensation in my mind, yet this produces activity in my brain. Moreover, the act of imagination is an act of free will, it is a negation of the existing state of affairs, it projects a possibility of a state of affairs that does not exist. An object cannot do that. As Sartre says, an object is "full positivity," it simply "is what it is," with no sense of temporality, acted upon by external forces and with no interior qualitative "life." Consciousness, by contrast, is a qualitative experience that always posits what is not, transcends the present toward the future, projects itself and, from time to time, as in the Libet experiment, is able to make itself the object of its own focus; self-consciousness is a precondition of consciousness since consciousness is always "to oneself" if not always "of oneself." The fact that qualitative, transcendent ideas (in the sense of either looking toward the future or going "beyond" the present) can produce an effect in the brain in this way suggests that this particular argument against dualism is not entirely convincing.

I appreciate that Goff is writing a popular science book here, aimed at a non-academic readership, but he does panpsychism an injustice if he has deliberately omitted the phenomenologists to avoid overcomplicating the subject. That the debate as he presents it is focused wholly on the analytic approach to the problem (that is, excluding the continental philosophers) is, ironically, indicative of a certain lack of imagination, I suggest, in the academic circles trying to confront the "hard problem" of consciousness. I apologize to Goff if his "academic book" Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (frequently mentioned in the footnotes) covers Husserl, Sartre, et al., but from the blurb here on Goodreads, the focus appears to be on Bertrand Russell, as is the case in this book. Panpsychism still awaits its Einstein. ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Jan 11, 2020 Maciej Sitko rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

One would think that we are quite far off from getting to know consciousness, that we are in the dark. Nothing is further from the truth given the progress of neuroscience. Sure, we haven't cracked the code yet but there are promising approaches to tackle a unifying theory.

One of these approaches is panpsychism. Crazy as it sounds, there is strong neuroscientific backing within the IIT community. IIT stands for Integrated Information Theory and there, scientists predict how information integrati One would think that we are quite far off from getting to know consciousness, that we are in the dark. Nothing is further from the truth given the progress of neuroscience. Sure, we haven't cracked the code yet but there are promising approaches to tackle a unifying theory.

One of these approaches is panpsychism. Crazy as it sounds, there is strong neuroscientific backing within the IIT community. IIT stands for Integrated Information Theory and there, scientists predict how information integration affects the manifestation of conscious brain states. Turns out that the more integrated part of the brain, the more conscious capabilities does it display. That is indeed promising and exciting, as some IIT theorists conclude that if IIT is necessarily true, then panpsychism is true.

All this entails that consciousness might be the fundamental characteristic of matter, and the more integrated information structures like that of humans, animals (or plants) are, the greater their capacity for conscious thought. Recent, mindblowing research on plant life and communication confirms that such may the case.

In such a system, there are either phenomenal or proto-phenomenal qualities that combine to greater conscious experience. Such a system, if true, is the solution for the everlasting quarrel between materialists and dualists; it is their natural synthesis and offers a fully unified theory.

Philip Goff does a great job at explaining the roots of the current ill-conditioned state of materialistic science, and how the alternative of panpsychism arose among physicists in the XX century. The very discovery of quantum mechanics and the wave function collapsing due to conscious human observation changed everything. Von Neumann was of an opinion that it is a clear manifestation of a missing piece - consciousness. Another great astronomer-physicist Arthur Eddington who uncovered and popularised Einstein's theory of relativity wrote a book The Nature Of The Physical World that was the first serious attempt to describe consciousness as an intrinsic feature of matter. Together with Bertrand Russell, they both wrote interesting things on the possibility of panpsychism.

Goff also concluded that if panpsychism turns true it might have colossal implications for environment and ecology; especially the more serious strain of ecology - deep ecology. All of this is relevant due to the present-day outcome of the Enlightenment project that along with modernism created the image of Anthropocene which in turn spawned consumerism, destroying the ecosystem of the planet.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book, you will never look at grass the same again after reading it. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2020 Shay rated it liked it

I really enjoyed reading this book and engaging with the arguments in it, and it was a good, and not overly partisan introduction to issues relating to consciousness. However, I disagreed with almost all aspects of the central argument of the book.

The author tries hard to distinguish himself from New Age philosophies, but by the second-last and most of all last chapter, it becomes clear that underneath the philosophical curtain lies what is, at its core, New Age philosophy. I felt that there wa ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Nov 16, 2019 Zsombor rated it did not like it

Shelves: philosophy, consciousness

Superficial, uninformed, rambling, all-around terrible.

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jan 09, 2020 Paul Ataua rated it really liked it

Hats off to any book that tries to bring very complex philosophical arguments down to non-philosophy graduates, and this book does a fairly good job of outlining dualism, materialism, and panpsychism. I can understand why some would have liked to have seen more of the deeper discussion and argument of those positions, but that wasn’t the purpose of the book. It more or less does the job it set out to do, but I would have liked it more if it had finished the chapters with a slightly more open sta ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 28, 2020 Ramalakshmi shanmugavel rated it really liked it

Consciousness:Is this based on my Experience?or some invisible force gives pressure to my brain to take action?or Is this just mere observer for my rational actions/behaviors?
How Science going to help us for our philosophical quest or vice versa,how can we experience something when we knew only the meaning of it?
What actually title of this book supposed to do with these questions?
Father of Modern Science Galileo define universe in mathematical perspective as size,shape,location,motion(Concrete n ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 05, 2020 Peter Gelfan rated it really liked it

The perennial paradox underlying this book: consciousness is a vividly real subjective experience, yet science cannot explain it. Does that mean consciousness is an illusion produced by brain mechanics, or that science’s self-imposed parameters render it incapable of exploring some of the world’s realities?

Goff explores the history, science, philosophy, and arguments of both answers, which often fall into one of two camps. Materialists say that everything that exists boils down to physics, while The perennial paradox underlying this book: consciousness is a vividly real subjective experience, yet science cannot explain it. Does that mean consciousness is an illusion produced by brain mechanics, or that science’s self-imposed parameters render it incapable of exploring some of the world’s realities?

Goff explores the history, science, philosophy, and arguments of both answers, which often fall into one of two camps. Materialists say that everything that exists boils down to physics, while dualists postulate a spiritual, non-physical reality coexisting with the physical. More recently, a third hypothesis avoids both materialism and dualism. Panpsychism holds that consciousness is a fundamental quality of all matter. Goff allies himself with panpsychism, in part because it avoids many of the internal inconsistences and paradoxes of the first two.

The author does a good job of explaining the history, current status, and pros and cons of each camp. It’s not his fault, but many of the arguments on all sides seem riddled with hair-splitting, semantics, and bizarre “proofs” that seem too far up the garden path to be a good proof of anything. The proof that materialism is wrong is so circuitous that it suggests logical sleight of hand. Yet he puts materialism on the defensive by demonstrating that while physics has gotten very good at predicting what physical objects and systems will do, when, and to what degree, it can’t explain the intrinsic nature of those objects and systems and so is in a somewhat similar pickle to those who have a hard time coming up with a useful definition of consciousness. As Goff acknowledges, his chains of logic are coherent but not waterproof; the most parsimonious explanation isn’t necessarily the correct one. But in following the arguments, you get a good immersion in the various ideas.

One concept seemed to be missing from Goff’s survey: a branch of panpsychism that holds that consciousness isn’t inherent in all matter but only in living matter (as explained in Stuart A. Kauffman’s A World Beyond Physics), which goes a long way in explaining why living matter behaves so differently than inanimate matter. It might also explain why the most complex computer in the world may never be at all conscious.

Galileo’s Error seems to have its own logical error right from the beginning in stating that the experience of consciousness with a sense of self proves the existence of the self as a conscious being. The experience may prove that there is consciousness and a sense of self, but the discrete conscious being could easily be an illusion. However, I’m not sure this has much impact on what Goff explains in the rest of the book.

This book’s branching tree of ideas about consciousness also makes a mostly implicit point that may be disturbing for anyone searching for any kind of philosophical certainty. It’s impossible to prove anything true, and the best we can hope for is to shed ourselves of ideas—no matter how much we love them, no matter what comfort they bring us—that can be proven false.

...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 11, 2020 Sanjay Varma rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

The first two sections are a very good read. Goff explains consciousness as defined by various schools of thought, and sets them against each other. Dualism, Materialism, Illusionism, Zombieism, Phenomenal Concept Theory, and Panpsychism. He is very patient, and very clear, choosing a few examples and then walking us through, using “thought experiments” to convey the subtle distinctions.

The weakest part of the book is the third section because Goff attempts to summarize ALL of the world’s spirit ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 07, 2020 Tiago Faleiro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, audiobooks, philosophy

This might be my favorite book about philosophy of mind that I have read. The title alludes to the shift that Galileo introduces in the history of science, and he was a big component of the scientific revolution. I tend to associate the latter more with Descartes and Bacon, but Galileo played an important part as well and it was well argued here. More importantly, the author's choice for Galileo fits perfectly with how he presents his case for science and consciousness in the book.

First, Galile This might be my favorite book about philosophy of mind that I have read. The title alludes to the shift that Galileo introduces in the history of science, and he was a big component of the scientific revolution. I tend to associate the latter more with Descartes and Bacon, but Galileo played an important part as well and it was well argued here. More importantly, the author's choice for Galileo fits perfectly with how he presents his case for science and consciousness in the book.

First, Galileo concluded that nature is mathematical and knowable, but it did so at the expense of taking consciousness completely out of the picture. He thought we could never put the mind into a materialistic and mechanistic worldview. The qualitative reality of subjective consciousness was completely out of our reach. This is quite relevant because we inherit this view, and it is what allowed mathematical physics to flourish. But likewise, we remain with the same "problem", with consciousness being outside of a scientific framework.

Second, while he is known for advancing heliocentrism and Copernicanism, which made him a father of science, he actually did so philosophically, and not in a typical scientific manner. This is ironic because philosophy of consciousness is often dismissed because it is thought that science will provide the answers, and philosophy is irrelevant. Yet, the very foundation of modern science and the most important scientific paradigm shift was done philosophically.

Aristotle believed that the speed to which an object falls is proportional to its mass. This is of course very intuitive and was believed for over a thousand years. Galileo proved this wrong by a thought experiment. If heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, let's say we stick them together with a chain and drop them from a height. Does the heavier object fall faster than if not chained? From Aristotle's perspective, yes and no. The fact that the heavier object is tied to the lighter one slows the heavy object down. But the fact that the heavier object is tied to the lighter one, it speeds up the lighter one.

But if they are chained together, they can be considered as a unit, and with a weight that is higher than both of them (lighter+heavier+chain). Therefore it means that the whole unit will be faster than the heavier object if dropped alone.

Because an object can't be slowed down and speed up at the same time, Galileo concluded that this can't be true, a typical deductive (philosophical) reasoning, and without any empirical method. Thus he claimed that all objects fall precisely at the same speed, regardless of weight. I found this fascinating, and I was both mindblown and annoyed that I never heard about this even once in my life.

Galileo aside, the author goes through the problems of accounting consciousness in a scientific and materialistic lens. The common view is either that consciousness is explained by the brain (which is perceived as the solution to outdated Cartesian dualism), or if you're slightly more educated, that while consciousness cannot be accounted by the brain now, it will be in the future when neuroscience is better developed. Goff goes through these problems and describes them incredibly well. All of it can be understood quite well, and he writes assuming that the reader has no philosophical background at all.

I really appreciate this because this problem isn't one that can be easily described to non-philosophers. When one claims that consciousness cannot be accounted for by the brain, people tend to view it as if it's by default outside the brain, in some sort of magical or religious way. Even for highly intelligent and educated people, if they're very embedded into a scientific background, understanding the nuance of consciousness can be tricky. This book I think is the perfect introduction for someone to start thinking about this problem.

While I was fairly familiar with philosophy of mind, and the book is intended as an introduction to non-philosophers, I still managed to learn quite a bit. For example, thought experiments that are a staple of the hard problem of consciousness, such as The Zombie Argument, or Mary's room, are arguments that I've heard countless times before. Yet, Goff presented them brilliantly, with a lot of detail and nuances that I either forgot or never learned.

The book argues for panpsychism (more specifically, monist panpsychism influenced by Eddington and Russell in the 1920s) to solve the hard problem of consciousness. Panpsychism being the view of mind and matter aren't distinct, but rather the same thing. Mind is matter, and matter is mind. Consciousness didn't just magically pop into the universe but was there all along. This is a very weird view when you first heard it, but it is very intellectually respectable once you learn about it. I don't consider myself a panpsychist, but I'm very sympathetic towards it, and I seem to gravitate towards it more and more over time.

A good thing about this book is that even if you disagree with panpsychism completely, such a large portion of the book is dedicated to explaining what the problem is that it's well worth reading even if you disagree with this particular solution. I also liked that the author connected many other things that aren't typically covered, yet he links them to the problem of consciousness. I certainly wasn't expecting quantum mechanics or time-travel to be featured, but it is!

While it was one of my favorite books I have read lately, there were still a few things I did not like. I think he overly lied on the Occam's razor for some of the arguments, and I liked the last part of the book the least. It tried to tie panpsychism to environmentalist ethics, free will, and morality. I understand the arguments but I wasn't convinced and don't think they are very strong. Not to mention irrelevant from a "metaphysical" stand-point of panpsychism being true or not. It doesn't matter what conclusions it leads to, being favorable or not. I also thought that the book was lacking in arguing for and against the materialistic emergence argument. As flawed as it is, I think it is one of the strongest cases for materialism and was only touched on peripherally.

Overall it's a fantastic book about one of the most interesting philosophical fields. I think it's very fair to call it the biggest mystery in the universe, and if you know nothing about it, you're missing out. And if you belong to the camp that you think philosophy is irrelevant, or consciousness is simply what the brain does, then you definitely need to read the book! While this book was meant for the layman, he also has written a book on the same subject for academics, which covers most of the same topics but goes a lot deeper into the arguments and details of it, called "Consciousness and Fundamental Reality", which I definitely plan to read in the future. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 29, 2022 Brad rated it did not like it

Shelves: science, philosophy-religion

A tremendously disappointing and unsatisfying book. The author seems to think that he has made some sort of philosophical breakthrough but somehow is not able to recognize, much less reconcile, the errors and incomplete nature of his theorizing.
The heart of the book, I suppose, consists of chapters 2, 3 and 4 in which the author gives his take on what he considers the three major schools of thought regarding the nature of consciousness: 1. Dualism, in which the physical brain somehow works with A tremendously disappointing and unsatisfying book. The author seems to think that he has made some sort of philosophical breakthrough but somehow is not able to recognize, much less reconcile, the errors and incomplete nature of his theorizing.
The heart of the book, I suppose, consists of chapters 2, 3 and 4 in which the author gives his take on what he considers the three major schools of thought regarding the nature of consciousness: 1. Dualism, in which the physical brain somehow works with the immaterial mind to produce consciousness; 2. Materialism, in which the physical world (the brain) is all there is and somehow "creates" or at least "hosts" consciousness; and 3. Panpsychism, which also posits that the physical world is all there is but is different from Materialism because...well, the author is just not really up to the task of adequately explaining what he considers to be the difference between this school of thought and Materialism. And, to my mind this failure really damages his case.
Nonetheless, he devotes considerable time to trying to disprove Materialism by basically saying that objective matter cannot explain subjective experience - and somehow he knows that IT WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO. How he knows this, he doesn't say. But for example, in discussing color experience, the author more than once dismisses any possibility that future discoveries will increase our understanding. HOW DOES HE KNOW THIS? By definition, the author cannot know what future discoveries will add to and perhaps even explain consciousness, because if he already knew what they were, they WOULDN'T BE DISCOVERIES. There is definitely an unsavory arrogance in the author's tone that seems to say, "Millennia of philosophical pondering and scientific/neurological discoveries have not solved the (admittedly) hard problem of consciousness, but they have gotten close enough for me to know what solutions are incorrect; but somehow I know the answer, so I'll take it from here."
So when he turns his attention to Panpsychism, he seems to be saying "With Materialism, consciousness=matter, and that doesn't work. But with Panpsychism, matter=consciousness, and somehow that DOES work. Basically, the problems he claims invalidate Materialism are the same ones that bedevil Panpsychism, but he doesn't bother addressing why THAT theory is invalidated when the latter is not.
I have no problem with the concept that on some level, all matter is conscious and that consciousness is in many ways a fundamental - perhaps THE fundamental - principle or force in the universe, but the author falls flat on his face when he tries to make the case that Materialism does not allow for this, while Panpsychism does. And his arrogance in trying to make this case and his epic failure at doing so make large sections of his book just plain unpleasant to read.
The last chapter of this book purports to address the "meaning of life." After what I had read in the previous 180 or so pages, I approached this section with more than a little trepidation. After reading it, I'm sorry, but John Lennon succinctly captured the essence over fifty years ago in "Instant Karma" when he sang:
"Why on earth are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear.
Why on earth are you there? When you're everywhere, come and get your share."
Read this book if you want to be subjected to 220+ pages of someone so pleased with how clever they are, otherwise I would surely skip it. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2021 Venky rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Philip Goff is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham. He is also an unabashed apologist for panpsychism. In his rousing and compelling book, “Galileo’s Error”, he makes a measured and reasoned plea for upholding the virtues of panpsychism as a rational ally for plumbing the mysteries and myths associated with the complex and abstruse subject of consciousness. The subject of consciousness has been a duel between two warring factions whose respective logic are placed on Philip Goff is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham. He is also an unabashed apologist for panpsychism. In his rousing and compelling book, “Galileo’s Error”, he makes a measured and reasoned plea for upholding the virtues of panpsychism as a rational ally for plumbing the mysteries and myths associated with the complex and abstruse subject of consciousness. The subject of consciousness has been a duel between two warring factions whose respective logic are placed on two extreme ends of a philosophical continuum. On one end of the spectrum stand the dualists. Following in the footsteps of the indomitable philosopher Rene Descartes, the dualists posit that the mind and body are distinct and separable. The dualists dispute the notion that the mind is synonymous with the brain. The other end of the continuum is inhabited by the materialists. Cocking a snook at the dualists, the materialists are firm in their conviction that mind, and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. As Goff highlights in his book, the most vociferous and popular proponents of materialism are known by the now famous moniker of “The Four Horsemen”. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett constitute the contemporaneous torch bearers for the philosophy of materialism.

Panpsychism attempts to take a more altruistic and reductionist view on the subject of consciousness. As Goff writes, “Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of physical reality….They [panpsychists] believe that the fundamental constituents of the physical world are conscious, but they need not believe that every random arrangement of conscious particles results in something that is conscious in its own right. Most panpsychists will deny that your socks are conscious, while asserting that they are ultimately composed of things that are conscious.”

Panpsychism also suffuses an element of altruism and innate benevolence in individuals towards the very ecosystem that surrounds them. This is due to the singularly unique fact of attributing the feature of consciousness in a ubiquitous fashion to both animate beings as well inanimate objects. Goff attempts to corroborate the munificence of panpsychism by taking recourse to various empirical references. Suzanne Simard, of the University of British Columbia, injected trees with isotope traces, and revealed a complex web of communication between trees, which she had dubbed the “Wood-Wide Web.” “Communication happens via mycorrhiza structures, which connect trees to other trees via fungi. The trees and the fungi enjoy a quid pro quo relationship: the trees deliver carbon to the fungi and the fungi reciprocate by delivering nutrients to the trees. A dense web of connections is formed in this way, with the busiest trees at the center connected to hundreds of other trees.” Another example is that of Monica Gagliano, a research associate professor at the University of Western Australia in Perth, who remarkably demonstrated that pea plants can be subject to conditioned learning.

Goff liberally relies on the articulations and theories pioneered by the physicist Arthur Eddington, and embellished by the brilliant Mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Both Eddington and Russell opined that there was nothing in the Physical Sciences that illuminated the intrinsic nature of the ‘stuff’ constituting the world. The physical sciences only elaborate manner in which stuff interact with each other. But they are woefully inadequate in explaining what they are. For example, an electron is described in extraordinary depth with respect to its properties, qualities and interactions with other elements. But what exactly is the essence permeating and defining an electron is beyond the remit of the physical sciences. Consciousness, however, is the only fundamental feature that accords an element of certainty.

The title of Goff’s book itself derives from a fascinating proposition put forward by the Italian Physicist Galileo. Galileo placed the language of mathematics at the highest observational pedestal when distinguishing material properties from their sensory qualities. In this brilliant man’s imagination, all material objects inhabiting the world can be identified with the following characteristics, only: Size, Shape, Location and Motion. But what about the sensory qualities then? Doesn’t the audacious stripping away of the sensory qualities from the purely physical attributes create an obvious gap when it comes to fathoming the import and gravity of material objects? For example, taking the example of a lemon, what explains the yellowness of the lemon, its smell and the sour taste. Galileo had a ready answer to this conundrum, informs Goff. The solution was – the soul. “For Galileo, the lemon itself isn’t really yellow; rather yellowness exists in the soul of the person perceiving the lemon. Likewise, neither the sour taste nor the citrus smell are really in the lemon; rather they’re in the soul of the person tasting or smelling the lemon.”

But this formulation, on a plain and simple reading, reeks of escapism. Excising the sensory qualities only because they are not amenable to the same degree of explanation or elaboration as is the preserve of the material properties, poses more difficulties than providing solutions. “However, Galileo’s philosophy of nature has also bequeathed us deep difficulties. So long as we follow Galileo in thinking (A) that natural science is essentially quantitative and (B) that the qualitative cannot be explained in terms of the quantitative, then consciousness, as an essentially qualitative phenomenon, will be forever locked out of the arena of scientific understanding. Galileo’s error was to commit us to a theory of nature which entailed that consciousness was essentially and inevitably mysterious. In other words, Galileo created the problem of consciousness.”

In the year 1994, philosopher David Chalmers, was amongst the participants who had gathered at the first Science and Consciousness’ conference in Tucson. Chalmers stunned his audience by proposing that instead of addressing ‘easy’ problems, such as what happens in the brain when we learn, remember or recognise, there was an urgent need to concentrate on what he termed was ‘The Hard Problem.’ Chalmers asked, “why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?” What links a purely physical object such as the human brain with the invisible but perceivable consciousness? Panpsychism, argues that consciousness pervades everything. As Sheldrake once opined, “Panpsychism is not a new idea. Most people used to believe in it, and many still do. All over the world, traditional people saw the world around them as alive and, in some sense, conscious or aware: the planets, stars, the earth, plants and animals all had spirits or souls.” Goff confidently claims that “in twenty years’ time the idea that panpsychism can quickly be dismissed as ‘crazy’ will seem, well, crazy.”

“Galileo’s Error” is at once simple and complex. While the notions of dualism, materialism and panpsychism are explained in a smooth, flowing and easy to rasp manner, thinks become extremely dense and heavy when they venture into the realm of the ‘Gedankenexperiment’. Esoteric and convoluted concepts such as Quantum entanglement, Superposition etc pose formidable challenges to the unsuspected and the uninitiated. In fact, one of the most alluring aspects of Goff’s book, is the reference to a plethora of thought experiments. Thus the reader is dazzled by the “what it is like to be a bat” argument of Thomas Nagel, “The Black-and-White Mary experiment by Frank Jackson that has at its nub a genius neuroscientist Mary, who knows everything there is to know about color but grows up in an entirely black-and-white environment, the Chinese room argument of John Searle, the Theory of Relativity propounded by Einstein, and of course The Hard Problem of David Chalmers.

“Galileo’s Error” a quest inducing work of consequential proportions. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 14, 2021 Bob Woodley rated it really liked it

Shelves: religion-philosophy

Philip Goff’s book “Galileo’s Error” is a pleasure to read. It is easy to follow the arguments, and the writing progresses at a good clip. I read this thought-provoking book in a few hours, and it animated a few family conversations around the dinner table.

Analytical philosophy is forever fighting a rear-guard action against scientific materialism. As indicated by his title, the book is a plea to consider some modest alternatives. But the author (and his colleagues it seems, based on the footnot Philip Goff’s book “Galileo’s Error” is a pleasure to read. It is easy to follow the arguments, and the writing progresses at a good clip. I read this thought-provoking book in a few hours, and it animated a few family conversations around the dinner table.

Analytical philosophy is forever fighting a rear-guard action against scientific materialism. As indicated by his title, the book is a plea to consider some modest alternatives. But the author (and his colleagues it seems, based on the footnotes), are always on the defensive against critiques from the dominant materialists in our society, so the result is very tentative. In fact, the framework Goff proposes still has a materialistic starting point: where do we find consciousness in the world of things? Rather than asking (for instance) how does the appearance of reality arise in consciousness? So Goff is forced to consider seemingly absurd propositions like: are atoms conscious?

The ongoing search for empirical support for panpsychism is another example of this kowtowing to physical science.

This does explain however, the peculiar centrality of quantum mechanics in this book, because quantum mechanics is one area of science with enough wiggle room to allow one to insert some modestly transcendant POVs. But rather than shoe horn one's theories into the tiny gaps left by quantum mechanics, why not just adopt Karen Barad’s agential realism instead?

The author blithely asserts that the location of consciousness is in the brain, even though many cultures place it in the heart. But locating it in the brain allows Goff to make use of arguments from neuro-science.

The materialist basis for panpsychism is perhaps the cause of its biggest problem: the so-called “combination problem”. This struck me as an odd non-problem. We don’t ask how we can recreate the sun from sunlight on the ground (for instance), or how we can recreate the ocean from puddles, so why do we ask how we create human consciousness from cellular consciousnesses?

I was surprised by the omission of a few issues that I would have expected to be discussed in a book like this:
- If the world is made of consciousness, does that mean reality is all in our minds?
- Why does consciousness so often seem to require a body to experience the world? Is it possible to experience without a body?
- Is consciousness experiencing the world or is it projecting the world?

Finally, I realize that Philosophy of the Mind lies squarely in the analytical tradition. Which means that Goff was never going to refer to psychology like continental philosophers might. Nonetheless, it was jarring to not see a single reference to the unconscious in a book on consciousness. The section in this book on free will can hardly make sense without a discussion of the unconscious and its impact on our supposedly conscious decisions.

Nonetheless, an excellent book and highly recommended. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 07, 2021 Ahmad rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: neuroscience

The error, according to the author, is when Galileo decided that there are aspects of reality that science can mathematically quantify (size, shape, location and motion of material objects), and others that can’t be described mathematically: subjective, qualitative experiences (like the smell of a flower).
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound when there’s no one to hear it? To Galileo the answer is no. It makes air vibrate, but unless there’s an ear around, these vibrations aren’t ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2021 NN rated it liked it

Shelves: 2021

From the viewpoint of mainstream materialism/physicalism, this book might be perceived as pushing the envelope. For those who have delved deeper into the subject and who don't share the author's prejudice against that which is commonly termed the irrational (think magic, paranormality, the occult etc.), it actually seems rather narrow-minded. In fact, it emits a distinct bourgeois academic, even redditesque energy, which is only reinforced by occasional political signaling of a dull liberal prog ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Oct 15, 2021 Thomas West rated it it was amazing

I had originally hard if Philip Goff from an interview with (a physicist I believe, but possibly just a mathematician,) in which he advertised this book. Being someone who was interested in Pantheism, and its relation to scientific ways of seeing the world, this book really grabbed my attention

This is a great book not only as an introduction to Panpsychism, (an idea I find highly provacative and I think you'll see why if you read this text...) But also to general theories in the philosophy of mi ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 17, 2020 Daniel Hageman rated it really liked it

Shelves: consciousness, science

Nothing like smashing through a full book during a long day of travel. This book is an obvious 5 star before the final two chapters. Perhaps the best follow-up to Annaka Harris's book that discusses the plausibility of panpsychism and possible implications that are beginning to be considered more and more seriously in the field. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 11, 2020 Johanne Maria rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favoritter, bevissthetsfilosofi

Eloquent and intriguing introduction to the different theories on consciousness. Philip Goff produces some rather convincing and lucid arguments for a seemingly far fetched idea. Highly recommended for anyone new to the field!

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Apr 04, 2021 Nathan Ormond rated it liked it

A good introduction to pansychism, philosophy of mind in general and a little philosophy of science

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 25, 2021 Rob rated it liked it

Chapters 1-4 = 4 stars
Chapters 5 = 0.5 stars
Read to page 181, then skip the woo.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2022 atb rated it really liked it

Following Erwin Schrödinger's image (articulated in Mind and Matter), we can say the position of consciousness with regard to the physical sciences is that of a painter, who having completed the picture of the landscape, finds she has forgotten to include herself in the view.
This metaphor represents the "problem" - or the "hard problem" - of consciousness: where do mental phenomena fit into the picture of the universe uncovered by the advance of the physical science? Well, nobody actually knows ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 07, 2020 Luke Shuffield rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020

Rarely do I read a persuasive book that, when finished, has successfully led me to adopt the point of view of the author. This is one of them. I started it as a consciousness-agnostic, but Goff dismantles both materialism and dualism very effectively in my opinion.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Dec 12, 2020 B. Rule rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Somewhat ironically, the speculative and tentative parts of this book were those I found most engaging. Goff ends his ontological essay with a short chapter where he offers some very guarded thoughts on the ethical, mystical, and political possibilities of the theory of panpsychism. Without himself fully committing to them, he notes the compatibility of panpsychism with viewpoints that re-enchant nature and could serve as a goad to fight human-caused climate change, grant a kind of truth to the Somewhat ironically, the speculative and tentative parts of this book were those I found most engaging. Goff ends his ontological essay with a short chapter where he offers some very guarded thoughts on the ethical, mystical, and political possibilities of the theory of panpsychism. Without himself fully committing to them, he notes the compatibility of panpsychism with viewpoints that re-enchant nature and could serve as a goad to fight human-caused climate change, grant a kind of truth to the "Perennial Philosophy" of the mystic view of the unity of all beings, and provide a fundamental grounding for moral judgments in that same connection. As he notes, we need to determine what is true, not merely what we hope to be true. However, all of the things he describes as natural corollaries of panpsychism are quite tempting indeed!

Of his fundamental metaphysical project, my enthusiasm is a little cooler. It's fascinating to think about how some form of consciousness could be the intrinsic nature of reality (which, he is at pains to note, is not to posit the existence of any supernatural stuff, but merely to describe the material of nature "from the inside"). I think he's right in his critique of "Galileo's error", by which he means the prescinding from the qualitative in favor of the instrumentalist quantitative approach of modern science. Of course there's no denying the predictive power of science; that's what it's meant to do! But it's structurally incapable of addressing ontological questions, and arrogates improperly to say then that such questions outside its purview are not even intelligible.

Of course, to grant that does not commit one to any particular metaphysical vision. Goff presents some interesting arguments for panpsychism against dualism and materialism, but most of his greatest successes are showing how panpsychism avoids intractable issues for those other positions, rather than showing the strength of his view on its own merits. There were several moments where I questioned the premises of his arguments or the definitions used to arrive at conclusions. I never felt firmly convinced, even though I would have said before reading this that I favorably incline towards panpsychist thinking. I still do, I guess, but this book didn't solidify my support as much as I expected.

But really, to be convinced is not why I read these books. It's more to enjoy walking a mile in the author's shoes, to imaginatively live out the arguments. I'll always be something of a metaphysical agnostic (and more of a mystic than Goff, apparently). As Goff notes, we'll never really know the ultimate ground of reality. This book as an intellectual artifact is, in my estimation, a bit uneven. It weaves uncertainly between popularizing philosophical concepts, offering technical philosophical proofs, making goofy jokes, and humanizing philosophers by speaking warmly of his professional friendships. The latter is totally unnecessary in this kind of book, but also awkwardly endearing. That's probably a good description for the book overall. It's overly generous to give this 4 stars, but I'll round up. Not by any means in my top echelon of philosophy or metaphysics books (which give one a giddy sense of understanding approaching the numinous), but it has its own kind of gawky charm. Will definitely give amateurs a good lay of the land for current debates in ontology. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 10, 2020 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I always thought that philosophy was rather boring and irrelevant, but this book has completely changed my perspective. The author presents three different theories of consciousness: materialism, dualism, and panpsychism, and examines the challenges that each must address. The prevailing orthodoxy is materialism, although many people are dualists without necessarily realising it. The problem that materialism has in accounting for consciousness is in generating subjective qualities from objective ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Dec 19, 2019 Dara Ghaznavi rated it really liked it

"Galileo's Error" is a great read, especially, for those who are new to the debates on consciousness. Phillip Goff provides a nonbiased analysis of different doctrines in the philosophy of mind with an extremely clear and eloquent manner. This leads to the incessant engagement of the reader with the book, creating moments of joy and enlightenment for her. That said, I do not think the book has managed to set a convincing case (at least for me) in favor of Goff's advocated view, "panpsychism". Th ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Dec 06, 2019 Jo-jean Keller rated it really liked it

I found Galileo's Error concise, well written and intriguing. It encouraged me to consider consciousness in a very different way. I will probably reread it to build my understanding after I've take time to consider my initial thoughts. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 14, 2020 Abe Aamidor rated it liked it

Shelves: abe-aamidor

Galileo's "error" was to quantify science, we are told in this book. I'm sympathetic - I don't like everything to be reduced to math - but is that really an error? I've had graduate school faculty tell me if you can't quantify your research, it's junk. Very arrogant of them. All this relates to the author's theory of human consciousness, which is actually the point of the book - not Galileo at all. The author here rejects both a reductionist view of consciousness (the claim that it's purely a fu ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review