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To many, pan-psychism is a dogma to believe or disbelieve and take sides for or against, but that is not helpful. Better is C.S. Lewis' statement that a vegetable may feel joy - of the kind that vegetables may feel. This page charts a Dooyeweerdian approach to pan-psychism that might help us avoid that.
From a Dooyeweerdian perspective, that question is to do with being a subject rather than an object. To Dooyeweerd, to be a subject is to be subject to laws of aspects. So, an electron is subject to laws of the physical aspect, a plant, to laws of the biotic aspect too, an animal, to laws of the psychical aspect too, and a human, to laws of all aspects. Functioning physically is "what it is like to be electron" and hence its kind of consciousness.
2. "Presumably". Debate rages on whether electrons can 'think' or 'tell' about their functioning, and so far depends on what we mean by think or tell. The debate seems more heat than light.
From a Dooyeweerdian perspective, an entity needs to be able to function as subject in the psychical aspect to feel about it, in the analytical aspect to think about it, in the lingual aspect to tell about it.
3. Complexity. Some differentiate kinds of consciousness merely on degree of complexity: humans are extremely complex, animals less so, plants less so, and electrons extremely simple. But what is complexity? Is it merely the number of things? If so, the number of entities, or the number of possible relationships among entities? It is spatial arrangement? Or the number of physical causal interactions? In what way is a plant more complex than a rock with the same number of atoms? In what way is an animal more complex than a plant? In what way is a human more complex than an animal? None of these have been answered convincingly in the debate so far. Is "complexity" a misleading word, because it orientates us towards mere spatial or numerical issues?
From a Dooyeweerdian perspective, the difference in 'complexity' lies in which aspects an entity may function as subject. The laws of later aspects are more complex than those of earlier aspects, for two reasons. The laws of earlier aspects are more determinative, and those of later aspects less determinative. Moreover, because of inter-aspect foundational dependency, the laws of each aspect involve the laws of all preceding aspects: the laws of the spatial aspect involve (foundatonally depend on) those of the quantitative aspect, laws of the kinematic aspect on those of the spatial, laws of the physical on those of all three, laws of the biotic on those of the physical, and so on. Thus the later the aspect, the more complex its laws, inheremtly, and so functioning as subject in those laws is more inherently more complex to explain. However, we do not need the concept of complexity to explain the difference in consciousness. To Dooyeweerd, the difference arises directly from the difference in aspects in which an entity may function as subject, and we have no need of the intervening concept of complexity.
4. Substance. Pan-psychism seeks to understand the fundamental substance underlying all things in a way that allows for some kind of conscious activity. Substance is that fundamental thing or process or quality of reality that is capable of existing and functioning independently of all others.
Dooyeweerd rejected the idea of substance, arguing that only the Divine is truly self-dependent and that on which all else depends [Clouser 2005]. In its place he advocated meaning as that which is fundamental, and that all being emerges from that. We should not seek to identify a fundamental substance, but fundamental meaningfulness, which is multiple, as the meaning-kernels of aspects.
5. Qualia. Qualities like the beautiful redness of a sunset cannot be explained by physics alone. Pan-psychism points to that as evidence for itself.
To Dooyeweerd, such qualities emerge from functioning in each aspect. The redness of a sunset is the functioning of an animal or human in the psychical aspect. Its beauty is a functioning of a subject in the aesthetic aspect. These functionings cannot be reduced to physical functioning of light wavelength absorption but they depend on it. We are aware of these qualities by functioning in the analytical aspect targetting these other aspects. So pan-psychism gains support from Dooyeweerd but Dooyeweerd goes far beyond, partly because he avoids the idea of substance.
6. Monism, Dualism and Pluralism. Given pan-psychism seeks to identify a fundamental substance, it contrasts itself with physicalism, which presupposes matter as the fundamental substance, especially since physicalists have not successfully shown how consciousness can arise from purely physical functioning. Chalmer's thought experiment, the Physicalist Zombie World, argues that to do so is philosophically impossible. Some pan-psychists adopt dualism, allowing for matter and consciousness as two independent substances simulataneously, echoing Descarte's dualism, but this seems unfashionable today. Some, including Russell, adopt psychical monism, arguing that while matter cannot explain consciousness, consciousness can explain matter. Both physicalists and the latter kind of pan-psychists are reductionist.
A Dooyeweerdian perspective is pluralist. That is, there are multiple aspects that are irreducible to each other and in them we function simultaneously. In that way it might seem like dualism yet not independent of each other. Dooyeweerd offers a rich way to escape reductionism without resorting to dualism.
7. Meaning. The pan-psychist discourse is riddled with references to meaning, purpose and the like. Physics tells us what the electron does but not what it is - what it means within the whole panoply of Creation. Some quantum physics thinkers suggest that something like pan-psychism can account for quantum entanglement and quantum information.
To Dooyeweerd, meaning, or meaningfulness, is fundamental, as the very ground of Being. "Meaning is the being of all that has been created, and the nature even of our selfhood." [NC,I, 4] He replaces "It exists" with "It exists as ..." where the ... refers to an aspect. An electron exists as physical, a number exists as quantitative, a plant exists as biotic, a poem exists as aesthetic and lingual. The functioning of an entity in an aspect does not 'just happen' but is an aspect of meaningfulness, and hence it is not entirely wrong to call it "information" - though it is metaphor for lingual information.
So this gives a new way of understanding pan-psychism that frees us from having to be for or against it, and from monism, reductionism and dualism.
This page, 'http://www.dooy.info/ext/panpsychism.html', is part of a collection of pages that links to various thinkers, within The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Email questions or comments would be welcome.
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Copyright (c) at all dates below Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.
Created: 25 January 2024 Last updated: