Hi Paul.

Thanks very much for reading my piece, and taking the time to reply. It's always useful for us amateurs to get input and feedback from someone more knowledgeable about these matters. Apologies for the delay in replying.

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“So the broad gist of your position is that Philip Goff is wrong to dismiss dualism and the immaterial mind?” Not quite: he is wrong to dismiss the immaterial mind, and he is right to dismiss dualism, but he does this for the wrong reasons.

On the 'poor conscious lives' point [I'm writing from memory of a few months ago], I was referring to the passage in his book, which you quote, where he was describing the problems with his version of panpsychism. You say that you hadn't seen that passage, and that it is surprising. If you accept the reality of poor conscious lives, then it is hard to describe that either scientifically or philosophically. So it seems to remain theoretical, nothing wrong with that of course, if it leads somewhere.

I agree with you that socks are more likely to be conscious than the particles which they’re made up of but, from memory, Goff seemed to be arguing the opposite. That was why I was trying to indicate his inconsistencies.

The implication of consciousness being beyond the reach of science...

It can only be within the reach of direct, spiritual experience. From what you say, it's obvious we aren't going to agree about this, but the scientific assumption is that consciousness is something that can be studied. In order to study something scientifically, by definition you need a detached, objective observer. In our current topic, don't we have consciousness studying consciousness? So isn't that some kind of inescapable vicious circle?

Meditative states seem to give an experience of pure consciousness, but mystics typically say that this cannot be described. In which case, would consciousness not be something that cannot be understood, therefore beyond science, merely experienced?

You say that much work has been done on rejecting the 'magical', and that this has not relied on a priori grounds. I would obviously need to know to what you're referring here. What degree of assumed materialism/scepticism is there as a starting point? By 'magical' I merely took Goff to mean 'immaterial', i.e. implied 'supernatural'.

I think that he does reject the immaterial mind on a priori grounds, or at least that these are implied. That is, after all, why he has to turn to panpsychism as a solution to the Hard Problem, because he sees that as the only way of avoiding an immaterial mind [some version of Idealism].