Inanimate matter possess a form of Consciousness
What gives
water crystals their shape?
Consciousness is
thought to be created by the brains of advanced living organisms and thus
confined to a small part of the Universe, but there are indications that
consciousness spreads throughout the entire Universe and is one of its basic
features. Panpsychism is a modern philosophical school that embraces this idea.
According to this
philosophy, Consciousness encompasses the entire Universe and evolves from
basic matter to atoms, molecules, lower organisms like viruses and unicellular
organisms, and finally reaches its peak complexity and development in the human
brain. The human brain derives consciousness from a series of complex
electrochemical reactions that connect its parts and create the unique inner
world that distinguishes individuals from one another, despite the brain's
basic material being the same for all.
This means that
consciousness, rather than being a unique feature of human subjective
experience, permeates reality; it is the foundation of the Universe, present in
every particle and all physical matter. This may appear to be nonsense, but as
traditional attempts to explain consciousness fail, the "panpsychist"
viewpoint is being taken seriously by credible philosophers, neuroscientists,
and physicists, including neuroscientist Christoph Koch and physicist Roger
Penrose[1].
New York University philosophy of mind professor David Chalmers outlined
the "hard problem of consciousness[2]." in
1995, demonstrating that the question of what causes consciousness remained
unanswered; even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and
structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the
question: Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of
consciousness will require more than just conventional scientific
approaches. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science,
or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain.
The increased academic focus on consciousness itself as a result of
Chalmers' "hard problem" paper has fuelled interest in Panpsychism.
Philosophers at NYU, which has one of the leading departments of philosophy of
mind, have made Panpsychism a feature of serious study. In recent years, there
have been several credible academic books on the subject, as well as popular
articles that take Panpsychism seriously.
One of the most popular and credible contemporary neuroscience theories
on consciousness is Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory, which lends
credence to Panpsychism. Tononi argues that something will have a form of
“consciousness” if the information contained within the structure is
sufficiently “integrated,” or unified, and so the whole is more than the sum of
its parts. Because it applies to all structures—not just the human
brain—Integrated Information Theory shares the panpsychist view that physical
matter has innate conscious experience[3].
Panpsychism was
seriously argued for by thinkers like philosopher Bertrand Russell and
physicist Arthur Eddington, but the movement lost steam after World War II as
philosophy shifted its attention to analytic philosophical issues with language
and logic. According to Chalmers, interest resurged in the 2000s as a result of
the "hard problem" being acknowledged and the growing popularity of
the structural-realist perspective in physics.
According to
this perspective, physics describes structure rather than the underlying
non-structural components. Eddington argued that there is a gap in our
understanding of matter, which can be filled by consciousness.
In Eddington’s view,
Goff writes in an email, it’s” silly” to suppose that the underlying nature has
nothing to do with consciousness and then to wonder where consciousness comes
from.” Stephen Hawking has previously asked: “What is it that breathes fire
into the equations and makes a Universe for them to describe?” Goff adds: “The
Russell-Eddington proposal is that it is consciousness that breathes fire into
the equations.”
Some optimists tend to
believe that the scientific methodology will be able in the future to frame the
concept of consciousness and the legalization of its relations; they are
optimistic about the great success achieved by the natural science up to date,
but such optimism is based on a misunderstanding of the history of the natural
science. Yes, natural science has witnessed unparalleled success, because it
did not branch out and was limited to tangible quantitative relations, but
these relations do not represent all aspects of reality.
Consider the
emergence of conscious sight from chemical photosensitivity. We need first of
all to remind ourselves that chemical or electrochemical sensitivity to light
is not the same as awareness of light. To underline this point: a chemical effect
of light is not awareness of the light that has caused this chemical effect.
We must not confuse
causality with intentionality and imagine that the processes by which the light
gets in are the same as those by which the gaze eventually comes to look.
These phenomena and
many others cannot be explained by the methods of contemporary science alone;
we need new insights to reach an integrated and comprehensive theory to
understand the world around us as it is.
It’s of significant interest to highlight that the Holy Qur’an alludes to a form of awareness inherent in lifeless entities. This is exemplified in Surah 59, verse 21, which reads:
“Had We revealed this Qur’an upon a mountain, you would have witnessed
it humbled, shattered from the fear of Allah. Such are the parables we put
forth for mankind, so they may reflect.”
[1] . Olivia Goldhill,
Science reporter, the idea that everything from spoons to stones is conscious
is gaining academic credibility, published January 27, 2018 Last updated April
3, 2018.
[2] . The Hard Problem of
Consciousness, Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy; a Peer-Reviewed Academic
Resource.
[3] . David Robson, Giulio
Tononi’s "integrated information theory" might solve neuroscience’s
biggest puzzle, BBC Future, 27th March 2019
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