a Practical Look at Panpsychism

So much mystery surrounds our universe and the things that comprise it. For centuries, great thinkers have looked to swaths of stars for patterns and for clues, as though there is something there to be decoded by humanity alone. “Follow the brightest star to the North,” a cryptic philosopher might say. As it turns out, those stars may not be mere balls of gas meant to spend eternity in their static blaze. They might not even be a disjointed map meant for us to piece together. Rather, they might boast their own sense of consciousness.

This concept is called Panpsychism. It is a strange looking word that might conjure all sorts of interesting mental images. As exciting as the prospect of psychic communication with kitchen pans is, the name is actually derived from several Greek words. “Pan” means “all,” and in this case “psyche” refers to the soul or the essence of life. To put it simply, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines Panpsychism as “the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous to the natural world.” In other words, the whole universe is comprised of one giant, interconnected consciousness.

While this lofty concept may seem like the imaginings of starry-eyed poets, many well-respected scientists, philosophers and scholars have stood behind it and continue to support it fervently today. For example, physicist Gregory Matloff has proposed that stars essentially choose their own path through space. This is of course not to say that stars function in the same way that living organisms do (with complex nervous systems and the like). According to Matloff, some stars release “uni-directional jets” that allow them to propel through the galaxy. Moreover, Matloff explains that cooler stars enjoy a molecular environment that promotes quicker movement. Some might say, then, that some stars are specially destined to trek purposefully. That said, the concept of a star with its own “free-will” is still relatively young. As of now, a telescope called Gaia has been tasked with monitoring approximately one billion stars and their curious behaviors.

But we do not have to scour our entire galaxy to find potential signs of panpsychism at work. Neuroscientist Christof Koch has turned to the human brain for answers. As it stands, most of us think of consciousness as something wholly innate -- that is, we act a certain way in hope of reaping a specific result, regardless of the outer environment. In this school of thought, consciousness intertwines neatly with humanity and its complexity. We live and act upon our emotions and impulses -- thus, we are conscious.

Koch believes that consciousness is something larger than that, that some physical beings experience consciousness in ways unfamiliar to us. These beings may not be able to distinguish one sophisticated idea from another, the way we do. They can, however, experience the world or the universe around them, which Koch sees as the only prerequisite for consciousness.

Even so, Koch’s ideology differs from that of Matloff in one significant way: Koch’s definition of consciousness requires that a being is living. As he posits, all living things, even the smallest bacteria, are composed of complex systems. These systems behave according to the needs of the organism that houses them, and that organism in turn acts according to its biological needs.

For example, a mouse may have no sense of mortality. It does not fret that it will die and then be nothing, that it had done nothing more than scuttle about an empty pantry. It does, however, react with caution if it senses a hawk overhead or a snake in the underbrush. Like any living thing, it adapts to its environment and sometimes even outsmarts it. Confronting a predator is an experience, as is fleeing from one. These are conscious acts, even if the mouse has no concept of winning or losing, living or dying.

Thus, Koch’s concept of consciousness is tied neither to humanity nor to physicality as a whole, but to biology.  A star may react according to its environment, but it does not have the capacity to register these reactions as unique experiences. That said, just because Koch does not subscribe completely to Matloff’s idea of consciousness does not mean that he sees living things completely separate from the universe. We still coexist with this vast universe. It sprawls endlessly and sees the beginnings and ends of things. Koch defines this as an “internal experience intimately tied to our own.”

Skeptical about Panpsychism? Good! Our goal is a culture of curiosity, in which trolls and hurt feelings are checked at the virtual door. Speaking of panpsychism skeptics, in an article published in The Atlantic, writer Keith Frankish closely analyzes all angles of the Panpsychism debate and concludes that he remains unconvinced by it. One of his most pressing arguments is that Panpsychism does not really explain how so many different consciousnesses, spanning across an entire universe, could come together so neatly to create a single and uniform consciousness. Such a theory would assume that all these individual consciousnesses are themselves uniform, which Frankish finds unlikely.

All this said, there’s no objective way to prove or disprove Panpsychism. But it does encourage us to do one thing, whether we believe in the concept or not: to reflect seriously on our own consciousness, our minds and even our souls. How do we fit into the world around us? And how can we improve ourselves in this little thing called life?

Ultimately, Panpsychism may simply be a thoughtful option for piecing together the world and our place in it -- and that is okay, even if it still remains steeped in obscurity. After all, if we can learn to understand the minds around us, so too can we open up some insight into ourselves and to those with whom we share this universe.