Panpsychism, Aggregation and Combinatorial Infusion
Quote:Deferential Monadic Panpsychism (DMP) is a view that accepts that physical science is capable of discovering the basic structure of reality. However, it denies that reality is fully and exhaustively described purely in terms of physical science. Consciousness is missing from the physical description and cannot be reduced to it. DMP explores the idea that the physically fundamental features of the world possess some intrinsic mental aspect. It thereby faces a severe problem of understanding how more complex mental states emerge from the mental features of the fundamental features. Here I explore the idea that a new form of aggregative emergence, which I call ‘combinatorial infusion’ could shed light on this problem and bolster the prospects for this form of panpsychism.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell