Panpsychism in Catholic Thought

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It may sound strange to some but it may not be as strange as it seems on first glance.
 
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism:
2.1 The Definition of Panpsychism
The word “panpsychism” literally means that everything has a mind. However, in contemporary debates it is generally understood as the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. Thus, in conjunction with the widely held assumption (which will be reconsidered below) that fundamental things exist only at the micro-level, panpsychism entails that at least some kinds of micro-level entities have mentality, and that instances of those kinds are found in all things throughout the material universe. So whilst the panpsychist holds that mentality is distributed throughout the natural world—in the sense that all material objects have parts with mental properties—she needn’t hold that literally everything has a mind, e.g., she needn’t hold that a rock has mental properties (just that the rock’s fundamental parts do).
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I am not getting a connection between this and Catholicism. @Kei?
 
Assuming I’ve understood it correctly, this idea directly contradicts Catholic teaching.
 
It definitely contradicts Church teaching. In my studies, I’ve noticed that words and terms are invented to draw in the curious and to give the illusion that we are moving toward the future - somehow. I’ve noticed a lot of other ideas come and go. They are often associated with con artists who want to make a buck.
 
Carl Jung expressed it as the “collective unconscious” a universal mind that arises from matter.

I don’t think the Church embraces Carl Jung interpretation of the phenomenon. I don’t think it rejects the phenomenon.
 
RandomAlias said:
t I don’t see that it relates in any way to Catholic teaching
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That’s the crux of the matter right there if you ask me. It’s not something important eneogh for the Church address.
 
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Evidence of the phenomenon as I understand it as experiences of interconnected psyche. Like when ideas or inventions rise at the same time at different continents. Phenomenon that connects the mind or thoughts that arise in several places from several people. without physical location as a possible reason for it.
 
If we interpret panpsychism to be talking about minds, not souls, then it does not directly contradict Catholic teaching, but it nevertheless does not sit well with Catholic teaching.

If we interpret panpsychism to be talking about souls, Catholic teaching is not consistent with the notion that inanimate objects have souls, or “soul stuff”.
 
If the same technology level exists, the same possibilities for use of technology exist. The same problems will exist, too. So it’s not surprising if multiple people try to solve the problem at the same time.

OTOH, it’s very common for the several solutions at the same time to be quite different.

And then there’s flight, where everybody was using the same sets of aeronautical tables, without noticing they were wrong. Once the Wrights figured out that they needed to get their own data and make their own tables, they were able to invent an airplane before anyone else. Everybody else’s would-be airplanes were all over the map (but wrong).

But at the same time, engines all over the world were getting lighter and more powerful. Eventually, you could have just put an engine on a brick and gotten an airplane of sorts.
 
unless it is a phenomenon of the soul that is just not understood. Like maybe the human soul is capable of that kind of union with other souls but in our fallen state is latent. It’s doesn’t relate to revealed truth about God.
 
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Panpsychism has a broad range of meaning, from Japanese shinto to much more minimal ideas where matter on some fundamental level has some mind-like qualities. It does not necessarily mean everything is part of one universal consciousness. This doesn’t mean all matter thinks like we do or are rational actors, but something far more esoteric. From what I know, I don’t believe it (at least the non-religious forms of it) is contradictory to the faith, though I have no reason to believe it true.
 
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My research shows this as a fictional way to look at the phenomenon. As a person who studies the emergence of inventions, parallel development is not uncommon. The tools and materials exist at a given time and there is a need for a device, like radio. So, different inventors tackle the problem. Similar approaches are taken not due to an interconnected psyche but because a finite set of tools and materials are available and a desire to invent. In the case of radio, Nikola Tesla was awarded credit for its invention after World War II, not Marconi.

The Church in no way teaches an interconnected psyche concept. It is an invention. A comic book type invention. It is a play on words designed to create curiosity that can or might lead to money. I have seen, in person, a quack medical device. It came in a beautiful case and because of its unusual appearance, fake doctors told people it could cure this or that. I won’t identify it but it was only a strangely shaped neon tube with no healing capability at all. The Church is against fraud.
 
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I agree that interconnected psyche as an interpretation isn’t the Church’s. Jung has influenced alot of Catholics and slipped into what many people would call Catholic ‘thinking’
 
Jung was popular for a time when people were more trusting when it came to experts. Reading what he wrote, I’ve written off his ideas. I don’t hold them to be true.
 
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