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Panpsychism, in philosophy, is either the view that all parts of matter involve mind, or the more holistic view that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Distinguish from the suffix -holism, which describes addictions It is thus a stronger and more ambitious view than hylozoism, which holds only that all things are alive. Hylozoism is the philosophical conjecture that all or some material things possess life or that all life is inseparable from matter This is not to say that panpsychism believes that all matter is alive or even conscious but rather that the constituent parts of matter are composed of some form of mind and are sentient. Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. It is an important concept in the philosophy of Animal rights, in buddhist philosophy and in

Panpsychism claims that everything is sentient and that there are either many separate minds, or one single mind that unites everything that is. The concept of the unconscious, made popular by the psychoanalysts, made possible a variant of panpsychism that denies consciousness from some entities while still asserting the ubiquity of mind. Many observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on Consciousness from other parts of the Mind. Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the

Panexperientialism, as espoused by Alfred North Whitehead is a weaker variation, which credits all entities with phenomenal consciousness but not with cognition, and therefore not necessarily with fully-fledged minds. Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines but is generally accepted to mean the process of awareness or thought

Panprotoexperientialism is a weaker variation still, which credits all entities with non-physical properties that are precursors to phenomenal consciousness (or phenomenal consciousness in a latent, undeveloped form) but not with cognition itself, or with conscious awareness. Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its Physical properties; that is that there are no kinds of things other

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In relation to other metaphysical positions

Panpsychism can be understood as a form of idealism - the metaphysical view that says the fundamental constituents of reality are mental (a view that holds that matter is dependent on minds, or that only mental qualities exist- a type of substance monism). In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Matter is commonly defined as being anything that has mass and that takes up space. MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Monism is the metaphysical and Theological view that all is one that all reality is subsumed under the most fundamental category of being or existence However, whereas Berkeleyan idealism holds that matter exists only in the mind, panpsychism holds that all material entities have minds — and an existence of their own, independent from human observers. George Berkeley (ˈbɑrkli (12 March 1685 14 January 1753 also known as Bishop Berkeley, was a Philosopher. In any case, panpsychism is not a form of substance dualism. In Philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are in some

Eliminative Materialism, the view that there is no such thing as mind, but only matter- is incompatible with panpsychism. Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the Philosophy of mind.

Materialism, the view that ultimately there is only matter, is compatible with panpsychism just in case the property of mindedness is always attributed to matter. The Philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is Matter, and is considered a form of Physicalism. However, most thinkers who take a materialist or physicalist approach to the mind-body problem only attribute mind to certain highly-organised beings, and attribute it in virtue of their structural, functional and behavioural attributes. Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its Physical properties; that is that there are no kinds of things other This means that once a brain falls below a certain level of functioning (in death or perhaps deep coma) there would no longer be a mind associated with it. Panpsychists often reverse the physicalist's belief that the mental emerges from the mechanistic operation of matter. For other uses see Emergence (disambiguation, Emergent, and Emergency. Instead, they say, mechanical behaviour is derived from primitive mentality of atoms and molecules — as are sophisticated mentality and organic behaviour, the difference being attributed to the presence or absence of complex structure in a compound object. In general usage complexity often tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement So long as this inverted emergence, the derivation of non-mental properties from mental ones, is in place, panpsychism is not a form of property dualism. Property dualism describes a category of positions in the Philosophy of mind which hold that while the world is constituted of just one kind of Substance - the physical

No form of panpsychism attributes full, human-style consciousness to the fundamental constituents of the universe therefore all version need a certain amount of emergence — that is, weak emergence, in which more sophisticated versions of basic properties emerge at a higher level. In Philosophy, emergentism is the belief in Emergence, particularly as it involves Consciousness and the Philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts Weak Emergence is a type of Emergence in which the emergent property is reducible to its individual constituents No version of panpsychism requires strong emergence, in which high-level do not have any low-level precursors or basis, and instead emerge "from nothing". Strong emergence is a type of Emergence in which the emergent property is irreducible to its individual constituents Indeed, avoidance of strong emergentism is one of the motivations for panpsychism.

Hylopathism argues for a similarly universal attribution of sentience to matter. Hylopathism, in Philosophy, can mean either the belief that some or all matter is sentient or the belief that properties of matter in general give rise to the subjective Few writers would advocate a hylopathic materialism, although the idea is not new; it has been formulated as "whatever underlies consciousness in a material sense, i. e. , whatever it is about the brain that gives rise to consciousness, must necessarily be present to some degree in any other material thing". Similar ideas have been attributed to philosopher David Chalmers. David John Chalmers (born April 20, 1966) is a Philosopher in the area of Philosophy of mind. However, there are also varieties of monism that don't presuppose (like materialism and idealism do) that mind and matter are fundamentally separable. Monism is the metaphysical and Theological view that all is one that all reality is subsumed under the most fundamental category of being or existence An example is neutral monism first introduced by Spinoza and later propounded by William James. Neutral monism, in Philosophy, is the metaphysical view that Existence consists of one (hence Monism) primal substance which in itself is Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (ברוך שפינוזה Bento de Espinosa Benedictus de Spinoza ( November 24, 1632 – February 21, For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910 was a pioneering Panpsychism can be combined with this view.

Panexperientialism, panprotoexperientialism, and panprotopsychism

Panexperientialism or panprotopsychism are related concepts. Alfred North Whitehead incorporated a scientific worldview into the development of his philosophical system similar to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical This page is about the scientific concept of relativity for philosophical or sociological theories about relativity see Relativism. His ideas were a significant development of the idea of panpsychism, also known as panexperientialism, due to Whitehead’s emphasis on experience, though the term itself was first applied to Whitehead's philosophy by David Ray Griffin many years later. David Ray Griffin (born 1939 is a retired professor of Philosophy of religion and Theology. Process philosophy suggests that fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience, which can be collected into groups creating something as complex as a human being. Process philosophy (or Ontology of Becoming) identifies metaphysical Reality with Change and Dynamism. This experience is not consciousness; there is no mind-body duality under this system as mind is seen as a very developed kind of experience. Whitehead was not a subjective idealist and, while his philosophy resembles the concept of monads first proposed by Leibniz, Whitehead’s occasions of experience are interrelated with every other occasion of experience that has ever occurred. He embraced panentheism with God encompassing all occasions of experience, transcending them. Panentheism (from Greek (pân "all" (en "in" and (Theós "God" "all-in-God" is a belief system Whitehead believed that the occasions of experience are the smallest element in the universe--even smaller than subatomic particles. A subatomic particle is an elementary or composite Particle smaller than an Atom.

Criticism

A criticism is that it can be demonstrated that the only properties shared by all qualia are that they are not precisely describable, and thus are of indeterminate meaning within any philosophy which relies upon precise definition. " Qualia " (ˈkwɑːliə is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us the ways things seem to us" Indeterminate has a variety of meanings in Mathematics: Indeterminate (variable Indeterminate equation Statically This has been something of a blow to panpsychism in general, since some of the same problems seem to be present in panpsychism in that it tends to presuppose a definition for mentality without describing it in any real detail. (What separates mental and non-mental phenomena?)

The panpsychist answers both these challenges in the same way: we already know what qualia are through direct, introspective apprehension; and we likewise know what conscious mentality is by virtue of being conscious. For someone like Alfred North Whitehead, third-person description takes second place to the intimate connection between every entity and every other which is, he says, the very fabric of reality. Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, To take a mere description as having primary reality is to commit the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness". In the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, one commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness when one mistakes an abstract Belief, Opinion

Another criticism is that we have a detailed understanding of how cognition — thought, memory, etc — work in terms of the functioning and structure of the brain. Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines but is generally accepted to mean the process of awareness or thought Thought and thinking are mental forms and Processes respectively ("thought" is both In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information If the matter that the brain is made of already has cognitive abilities simply by virtue of being matter, then cognition is somehow being done twice over.

One response is to separate the phenomenal, non-cognitive aspects of consciousness — particularly qualia, the essence of the hard problem of consciousness — from cognition. Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the " Qualia " (ˈkwɑːliə is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us the ways things seem to us" The term hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers, refers to the "hard problem" of explaining why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences Thus panpsychism is transformed into panexperientialism. However, this strategy of division generates problems of its own: what is going on causally in the head of someone who is thinking -- cognitively of course -- about their qualia?

In the history of philosophy

The view of the world as a macrocosm in relation to man (which is a microcosm, respectively) was a staple theme in Greek philosophy. Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the Cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level In that view it was natural to think about the world in anthropomorphic terms. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely Human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings natural and supernatural phenomena material states and objects The view passed into the medieval period via Neoplatonism, and became shared by Leibniz, Schelling, Schopenhauer and many others. Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical Philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD founded by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling ( January 27, 1775 – August 20, 1854) later von Schelling, was a German Philosopher

Idea of "animated atom" in Russian cosmism in the early 20th century. Russian cosmism is a cosmocentric philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the early 20th century

Josiah Royce (1855-1916), the leading American absolute idealist, held to the panpsychist view, though he didn't necessarily attribute mental properties to the smallest constituents of mentalistic "systems". Josiah Royce ( November 20, 1855, Grass Valley California. &ndash September 14, 1916, Cambridge Massachusetts) was an

The panpsychist doctrine has recently been making some kind of a comeback in the American philosophy of mind — for example, David Chalmers, Christian de Quincey and Leo Stubenberg have each recently defended it. Philosophy of mind is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature of the Mind, Mental events Mental functions mental properties David John Chalmers (born April 20, 1966) is a Philosopher in the area of Philosophy of mind. Christian de Quincey, PhD Christian de Quincey is a philosopher and author who teaches Consciousness, Spirituality and Cosmology In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism is one possible solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousness. The term hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers, refers to the "hard problem" of explaining why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences The doctrine has also been applied in the field of environmental philosophy through the work of Australian philosopher, Freya Mathews. Freya Mathews is an Australian Philosopher and Author. Her work is mainly concerned with ecological philosophy but also deals with questions of Metaphysics

In the psychoanalytic tradition

Carl Jung, who is maybe best known for his idea of collective unconscious, wrote that "psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another", and that it was probable that "psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing". Collective Unconscious or known to laymen as Collective Subconscious is a term of Analytical psychology, Coined by Carl Jung. (orig. source unknown, cited in Danah Zohar & Ian Marshall, SQ: Connecting with our Spiritual Intelligence, Bloomsbury, 2000, p. Danah Zohar (born 1945) is a management thought leader physicist philosopher and author 81). This could be interpreted as panpsychism, apparently of the neutral monism variety. Neutral monism, in Philosophy, is the metaphysical view that Existence consists of one (hence Monism) primal substance which in itself is

Other manifestations

Panpsychism and emergentism can be seen as alternative ways to bridge the more extreme positions of crude reductionism and crude holism. In Philosophy, emergentism is the belief in Emergence, particularly as it involves Consciousness and the Philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts Reductionism can either mean (a an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts or to simpler or more fundamental things Distinguish from the suffix -holism, which describes addictions Panpsychism differs from emergentism in that according to panpsychism, even the smallest physical particles have mental characteristics. Emergentism claims that though the particles be mindless, some systems formed by them, and by nothing but them, do possess mental attributes. System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek systēma is a set of interacting or interdependent Entities, real or abstract The human brain is a case in point.

Gaia theory, which views the biosphere as a self-regulating system, that maintains homeostasis in relation to many vital chemical and physical variables, is sometimes interpreted as panpsychism, because some think that any goal-directed behavior qualifies as mental. The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological Hypothesis proposing that the Biosphere and the physical components of the Earth ( Atmosphere The biosphere is the broadest level of ecological study the global sum of all Ecosystems. System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek systēma is a set of interacting or interdependent Entities, real or abstract Homeostasis (from Greek: ὅμος hómos, "equal" and ιστημι istēmi, "to stand" lit However, the goal-directed behavior of the biosphere, as explained by the Gaia theory, is an emergent function of organised, living matter, not a quality of any matter. The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological Hypothesis proposing that the Biosphere and the physical components of the Earth ( Atmosphere Thus Gaia theory is more properly associated with emergentism than panpsychism. The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological Hypothesis proposing that the Biosphere and the physical components of the Earth ( Atmosphere In Philosophy, emergentism is the belief in Emergence, particularly as it involves Consciousness and the Philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts

The label "naive" (vs. "philosophical") panpsychism is sometimes used to mean, not a doctrine defended by any philosopher, but the attitude of primal people and children to think of even inanimate objects as sentient and/or intentional. The term intentionality is often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" This is the same as animism. Animism (from Latin anima ( Soul, Life) commonly refers to a religious belief that Souls or Spirits exist in Animals

Panpsychism, as a view that the universe has "universal consciousness", is shared by some forms of religious thought: theosophy, pantheism, cosmotheism and panentheism. This article is about the philosophy introduced by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Pantheism ( Greek: πάν ( 'pan') = all and θεός ( 'theos') = God it literally means " God is All Panentheism (from Greek (pân "all" (en "in" and (Theós "God" "all-in-God" is a belief system

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panpsychism

-noun

  1. A philosophy which holds that all parts of matter involve mind.
  2. A philosophy which holds that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind.
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