[cosignal]

Just to be clear, "the information-processing dynamics of ‘simpler’ forms of life" being "part of a continuum with human cognition" does not strictly imply "Cognition as a property of all matter". Also, I fail to see how the latter is the "simplest premise for any materialist theory of the mind". How is it simpler to say that "all matter has cognition as a basic property" than to assume "certain arranges of matter exhibit cognition"?

[Lerc]

"certain arranges of matter exhibit cognition"

This is the threshold I talk about in my sibling comment. It is very difficult to come up with a materialist argument for what about that 'certain arrangement' makes cognition. I am unsure if it is possible to prove that there is no such argument, but I don't think we have made any progress in finding one either.

[Ukv]

> It is very difficult to come up with a materialist argument for what about that 'certain arrangement' makes cognition

I'd claim it's not necessarily harder than it is to argue certain arrangements make a computer. Which is to say, there's grey area but it's ultimately just a label we give to certain patterns/behavior, not some special line where the universe starts doing something different, so it's fine to be somewhat vague/arbitrary (when do sand grains become a heap?).

I think "Cognition as a property of all matter" is leaning too much towards panpsychism. There's a spectrum of chairs from thrones to stumps, but I wouldn't say "Chairness is a property of all matter".

[brudgers]

“Exhibit cognition” is weak sauce anyway.

Do we doubt people we know think when they are absent? Is our phone exhibiting cognition when we have telephone conversations?

[tshaddox]

Isn’t that just the sorites paradox?

[brudgers]

I did not say the statement implied my comment.

My comment was on the philosophical shortcomings of the statement in particular and the philosophical shortcomings of socially acceptable expressions of materialism in general.

“Particular arranges” is mind-body dualism with lipstick.