Harmony in a panpsychist world.

Experiences are typically followed by states for which they provide normative reasons, a correlation that demands explanation. Theories that address this explanatory challenge have an advantage. Biological theories, which hold that conscious subjects are generally biological entities, face problems in responding to this need. Panpsychism, the view that conscious subjects are ubiquitous in nature, offers an attractive response. These considerations support a 'psychophysical fine-tuning' argument for panpsychism, analogous to cosmological fine-tuning arguments for multiverse hypotheses.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists-theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities-are problematic. And I argue that panpsychism-which holds (roughly) that conscious subjects are ubiquitous in nature-provides an attractive response to these explanatory cries. Taken together, these considerations underwrite a kind of 'psychophysical fine-tuning' argument in support of panpsychism, one that is reminiscent of cosmological fine-tuning arguments in favor of multiverse hypotheses.