Panpsychism: the crazy philosophy of consciousness!

How much do we know about ourselves? Of course, how much we know is much much lesser than how much we don't! And out of the numerous questions that we human beings have not been able to answer, one is the reality of consciousness. And this article is about one of the craziest theories of consciousness, panpsychism. 

To be honest, when I first came to know about this, it felt like the craziest theory I've ever heard of. 

Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true. It says, everything has consciousness. It states that consciousness is not limited to humans and other animals. Plants have it, too. It doesn’t stop at living things, either. Stones and stars, electrons and photons, and even quarks have consciousness. I should clarify that by “consciousness,” I don’t mean self-awareness or the capacity to reflect on one’s existence. I simply mean “experience”: pleasure, pain, visual or auditory experience. According to some versions of the theory, the universe itself is conscious. This variety of panpsychism is known as cosmopsychism.

This may sound like the wackiest idea ever — far crazier than space aliens living secretly among us. But plenty of sane and reputable thinkers take panpsychism seriously, and the numbers of those who do are increasing. This idea of panpsychism isn't new, but it can be said that ancient religious philosophies like animalism may have been based on this fact, as they used to worship everything starting from celestial bodies to mountains, seas, and rivers! 

It simply goes the idea like, human beings have a very rich and complex experience; horses less so, mice less so again. As we move to simpler forms of life, we find simpler forms of experience. Perhaps at some point, the light switches off, and consciousness disappears. But it’s at least coherent to suppose that this continuum of consciousness carries on into inorganic matter, with fundamental particles having unimaginably simple forms of experience

Philosophers of science have realized that physical science, for all its richness, is confined to telling us about the behavior of matter, and what it does. Physics tells us, for example, that matter has mass and charge. These properties are completely defined in terms of behavior—things like attraction, repulsion, and resistance to acceleration. Physics tells us absolutely nothing about what philosophers like to call the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is in and of itself.

Consciousness, for the panpsychist, is the intrinsic nature of matter. There’s nothing supernatural or spiritual, but matter can be described from two perspectives. Physical science describes matter from the outside in terms of its behavior. But matter from the “inside”—that is, in terms of its intrinsic nature—is constituted of forms of consciousness.

Two virtues are usually claimed for panpsychism—namely, that it elegantly resolves two of the deepest mysteries in the universe.

• It explains how life can result from nonliving matter.
• It explains how consciousness can result from non-conscious matter.

It solves these problems simply—by denying that they exist. Since all matter and energy is, to varying degrees, sentient, there’s no such thing as “nonliving” or “nonconscious” matter, only matter whose potential to participate in these “higher” states has not been realized. In other words, animals, cells, and even inanimate objects have in them some innate potential to participate in higher states of consciousness, including rationality.

No one can figure out if panpsychism is real or merely a trippy theory, but we cannot ignore the fact that there are facts like 'time slowing down' which was thought to be crazy one century back before Einstein!