[yazanobeidi]

I like what you wrote here and how you think.

However I have to make one remark.

Schopenhauer would say that Alexa does in fact have will to turn the lights off. A burning will, the same will within yourself and everything that is not idea. That it is your word that sets off an irreversible causal sequence of events leading to the turning off of the lights. Schopenhauer would ascribe his “Principle of Sufficient Reason” as the reason for happening. It is not that Alexa chooses to obey, but by the causal chain enforced by physics and more leaves the will of the universe no choice but to turn off the lights. Same reason why the ball eventually falls down when thrown up. I believe this is the metaphor Schopenhauer uses in his World as Will and Idea.

[mjburgess]

Well Schopenhauer is an idealist, which confuses the issue. The world as will and representation is quite different than "the world as stuff with will" -- the latter is panpsychism.

To address "world as will", i'd just say it more-or-less doesnt matter what the world is in this sense. There's a distinction between my asking you "please turn the light off" and my rehearsing sounds "alexa, light off" -- and that difference "leaves open" the question of to what degree theyre both grounded in "the nature of the world". Since everything is "will", distinctions then just become distinctions in will.

As for panpsychism, which is really "materialism + the-material-is-conscious", this threatens to confuse the issue more -- since it isnt saying everything is "grounded in x" which allows you to ignore x, really -- as "everything-grounding" theories rarely disable your ability just to ignore them.

In misattributing the properties we are looking to create/find/etc. in things, panpsychism runs the risk of creating a false picture of continuity which impairs our ability to see genuine difference.

In other terms: whilst idealism borders on a dissociative paranoia, pansychism borders on schizophrenia -- whilst dissociation is your problem, schizophrenia might be our problem too.

Here the schiozphrenia of panpsychism is thinking that "Alexa is talking back" -- it isnt.