As Panksepp's work falls within affective neuroscience—which is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion—I would assume that Panksepp might say neurons were necessary for an organism to possess affective experience/consciousness. (As noted, that's just an assumption.)
Re: sense datum. I thought the follow excerpt from the SEP was interesting:
Sense-Data (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
"
3.1. The Appeal to Physicalism
One reason the sense data theory has lost favor is no doubt the ascendance of
physicalism in the philosophy of mind. Physicalists believe that the world is entirely physical; in particular, they believe that mental states either do not exist or are reducible to physical states, such as brain states. Physicalism is contrasted with
dualism, which holds that mental states/events are distinct from physical states/events.
For various reasons, most contemporary thinkers in philosophy of mind embrace some form of physicalism and reject dualism. If they are right to do so, then there is a reason for rejecting sense data: namely, that sense data do not seem to fit into the physicalist picture (Martin [2000, p. 222] discusses but does not endorse this line of thought).
Sense data are supposed to have the properties that perceptually appear to us. But, in cases of normal perception, the only
physical things that have the properties that perceptually appear to us are the external objects that the direct realists say we are perceiving; and in cases of illusions and hallucinations, there are no physical things that have the properties that perceptually appear to us. In particular, our brain states manifestly do not ordinarily have the properties that perceptually appear to us (except in the odd case that we happen to be looking at a brain). So sense data, if they exist, must be non-physical things. ..."
And yet, as noted, its hard to see how phenomenal qualities (colors, smells, tastes, etc) can be physical. The hard problem.
Much easier to see it how physiological mechanisms/processess can be about (or "represent") relevant physical stimuli.
[
@Constance, as ive noted in the past, your approach is most curious to me. You appear to favor a natural, embodied explanation of consciousness while at the same time seemingly rejecting physical, reductionist explanations. You seem to reject the idea that consciousness emerges from physical processess. Other comments you've made seem to indicate a belief or affinity for dualism—obes, ndes, past lives, etc. And your latest comment re neurons is very interesting as well.
When I consider all these things together, some exotic form of panpyschism seems to be the only approach that could fit the above parameters. Perhaps a model in which primative, physical organisms don't generate consciousness but instead "channel" it in some way. Having been established at an early stage of the emergence of life, the relationship between the two—organism and consciousness—evolves as life evolves. In this manner, physical organism and consciousness beget mind. ]
