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Yujin is a professor of philosophy at the University of Birmingham. His

new book Miracles: A Very Short Introduction will be out in November

conscious. However, it seems obvious that by gathering

their mini consciousnesses we cannot obtain a full-scale

human consciousness. The homogeneity of our conscious

experiences seems to contradict the panpsychist thesis that

our conscious experiences are aggregates of mini

conscious experiences. The combination problem is widely

considered the greatest challenge for panpsychism.

THINK BIG

Conscious experiences, which are smooth, continuous

and homogeneous, are analogous to smooth paintings

rather than to Impressionist paintings consisting of

distinct dots of colour. This observation leads us to a

variant of panpsychism, sometimes called

‘cosmopsychism’. According to cosmopsychism, the

consciousness of the entire Universe, that is, the cosmic

consciousness, rather than the consciousness of

subatomic particles, is a fundamental feature of reality.

This view is remarkably similar to pantheism, which

equates the Universe with God. Einstein expressed

sympathy with pantheism when he said, “I believe in

Spinoza’s [pantheistic] God, who reveals himself in the

harmony of all that exists.”

According to cosmopsychism, our smooth, continuous

and homogeneous conscious experiences are segments

of smooth, continuous and homogeneous conscious

experiences of the whole Universe, rather than

aggregates of small conscious experiences of subatomic

particles. Smooth, medium-sized paintings (human

conscious experiences) cannot be aggregates of distinct

small dots (mini conscious experiences) but they can be

segments of an equally smooth, large painting (cosmic

conscious experiences).

Cosmopsychists say that consciousness is everywhere

• not necessarily because subatomic particles are
  conscious, but because the entire Universe is irreducibly
  conscious. We may argue about how something large
  (cosmic conscious experiences) could be more
  fundamental than something medium (human conscious
  experiences) but this version of panpsychism does not
  face the combination problem. Cosmopsychism,
  however, perhaps stretches the imagination too far.
  There is nothing more direct and certain than our own
  conscious experiences. The 17th-Century philosopher
  and scientist Rene Descartes famously said, “I think,
  therefore I am”. We can doubt all sorts of things around
  us but we cannot doubt the reality of our own existence
  because the very act of thinking or doubting proves the
  existence of our own consciousness – something must be
  there to do the thinking or doubting. The mystery of
  consciousness therefore persists.
  So what do I think of panpsychism as a solution to the
  mystery of consciousness? On the one hand, I think the
  theory has some gaps to fill. It is unclear what conscious
  experiences of subatomic particles are, and how
  aggregates of them can yield full-blown conscious
  experiences. Without explaining these subatomic
  experiences fully, panpsychism cannot be considered a
  successful solution to the mystery. On the other hand, it is a
  highly attractive theory. It tries to explain how the brain can
  yield consciousness by stipulating the elegant thesis that
  the Universe is uniformly conscious. It seems to make more
  sense than its alternative: that full-blown consciousness
  suddenly came into existence through evolution in a tiny
  region of the purely material Universe. ß

PHOTOS: GETTY X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY