The claim that reality’s fundamental building blocks are conscious can seem to challenge what physics tells us the world is like. It’s no surprise then to find prominent physicists arguing that panpsychism is incompatible with physics, and therefore false. But that would be to misunderstand panpsychism: It’s not a competing scientific theory, but a philosophical interpretation of the claims of physics, argues Philip Goff.

Sean Carroll will debate this issue with Philip Goff and Keith Frankish live on the 'Mind Chat', YouTube channel 11th November, 2pm UK time: https://www.youtube.com/c/MindChat

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. It is the view that the basic building blocks of the physical universe – perhaps fundamental particles – have incredibly simple forms of experience, and that the very sophisticated experience of the human or animal brain is rooted in, derived from, more rudimentary forms of experience at the level of basic physics. Panpsychism has received a lot of attention of late. The world of academic philosophy has been rocked by the conversion of one of the most influential materialists of the last thirty years, Michael Tye, to a form of panpsychism (panprotopsychism) in his latest book. And the main annual UK philosophy conference held a plenary panel on panpsychism this year for the first time in its history.