Panpsychism Makes a Comeback (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 19:57 (3382 days ago)

Towards the end of a very long article in today's Guardian on the unsolved and maybe insoluble mystery of the source of consciousness, comes the following paragraph:-“...........in the last few years, several scientists and philosophers, Chalmers and Koch among them, have begun to look seriously again at a viewpoint so bizarre that it has been neglected for more than a century, except among followers of eastern spiritual traditions, or in the kookier corners of the new age. This is “panpsychism”, the dizzying notion that everything in the universe might be conscious, or at least potentially conscious, or conscious when put into certain configurations. Koch concedes that this sounds ridiculous; when he mentions panpsychism, he has written, “I often encounter blank stares of incomprehension.” But when it comes to grappling with the Hard Problem, crazy-sounding theories are an occupational hazard. Besides, panpsychism might help unravel an enigma that has attached to the study of consciousness from the start: if humans have it, and apes have it, and dogs and pigs probably have it, and maybe birds too - well, where does it stop?”-Of course some of us would argue that there are different degrees of consciousness, and that the consciousness, say, of a dog is not as many-layered as that of a human. But numerous scientists have studied the behaviour of bacteria and concluded that they too are sentient, intelligent beings, and so the question “where does it stop?” should certainly be taken seriously. In terms of living organisms and the course of evolution, I think it should be taken very seriously indeed!