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Panpsychism, in the general sense of everything in nature has some sort of consciousness (and I know, this is highly dependent on the way we define consciousness, but I want to talk about panpsychism in the general term, so, if it's ok, I'll let the answers to determine what definition of consciousness is used). Sometimes it's defined as multiple levels of consciousness, sometimes as one consciousness acting "behind" everything.

My question would be, can panpsychism, in any way, have some scientific (/empirical) testable meaning? In other words, is this line of thought worth exploring in science?

I know panpsychism is mostly metaphysical, and the idea of metaphysical to be tested in the science realms is often rejected, but maybe some aspects of it can be.

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    One problem is that even if we can come up with a widely-agreed-upon definition of 'consciousness', there's the issue of how 'fast' a given consciousness is. How do we know that, for example, the universe isn't 'talking' to us right now, but at a rate too slow for us to perceive? That it saying "Hello!" is a process that takes dozens of human lifetimes to complete?
    – Alexis
    Commented Feb 19, 2018 at 11:48
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    It would be arrogant for us to assume that the metabolic rate of humans universally defines the rate of communication between conciousnesses, but it does somewhat impose limits on hypotheses testable via observations.
    – Alexis
    Commented Feb 19, 2018 at 11:52
  • At this point nothing in particular seems to be on offer, although it is conceivable that phenomenal consciousness might have empirical consequences. Even if it does not the idea may have legitimate theoretical uses. After all, efficient causation also has no empirical consequences, as Hume eloquently explained, all we observe is one event following another, not the "causing" of it, yet it is widely used to organize our theories around causal laws.
    – Conifold
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 22:40
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    I can't speak for the literature, but I find approaches like panpsychism to be very effective at pinning down what sorts of definitions of consciousness science might be permitted to admit. The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness (IIT) is one such example. It's defined in a way which permits some testing, but defines consciousness on a gradient, rather than discrete levels, so it could be adapted to panpsychism easily.
    – Cort Ammon
    Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 0:03
  • No theory of consciousness can be tested in the natural sciences. It is not an empirical phenomenon. For science consciousness is a theoretical entity, unprovable and untestable. Quite why scientists so often fail to see this might be a good question for the forum.
    – user20253
    Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 12:42

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Gregory Matloff has been attempting to scientifically test panpsychism by using the anomaly in stellar motions in Parenego’s discontinuity. Certain types of stars do not follow their expected paths based on gravitation theory.

One could attempt to find panpsychism by looking for agents. One looks for agents where determinism breaks down and one is forced to consider randomness. Given randomness if it is not uniform, such as flipping a coin, something more needs to be explained. One explanation is that an agent is present. So testing panpsychism involves looking for non-uniform randomness. Whether anyone accepts this as science would be influenced by social mood more than metaphysics. At the quantum level this randomness is present and could be used as a justification for agency and hence panpsychism although one can easily ignore the whole issue.

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    Panpsychism, absurd as it is, at least does not presume everything has physical agency. And on the topic of quantum mechanics, one must certainly avoid the trap of quantum mechanics and consciousness are both weird and therefore equivalent.
    – Veedrac
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 13:51
  • @Veedrac It is good to note that panpsychism needs to distinguish between what has agency and what doesn't. There will be different theories based on what the theory claims has agency. One can cover up that agency by talking about randomness as the graphic story that you linked said, "classical events have probabilities and quantum events have amplitudes". There are multiple ways to build a theory on data. The most data can do is attempt to falsify a theory and even then a theory's supporters can modify it to slip out of a falsification.
    – Frank Hubeny
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 15:35
  • @FrankHubeny correct, I just read an article in relation to panpsychism, and for every little specific distinction, there's a philosopher who built an entire theory around that. It's funny, but it's very important work.
    – Yechiam Weiss
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:15
  • @YechiamWeiss David Skrbina's Panpsychism in the West provides a survey of the ideas and philosophers.
    – Frank Hubeny
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:38
  • @FrankHubeny thanks. I've read Chalmers' Idealism and the Mind-body Problem which summed up some of those nicely, I'll definitely read Skrbina.
    – Yechiam Weiss
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 18:00
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The brain is an instrument already suited to the problem of measuring and inspecting consciousness. We know this to be true because people are aware of consciousness. Consciousness is thus observable, just like any other physical property, and it is obviously bidirectionally causal given that consciousness varies by social environment and whether you stick a steel rod through someone's head.

Some people hypothesize a separate aspect of consciousness that is causally unrelated to physical reality; this allows for things like philosophical zombies. However, we can dismiss this argument (stronger variants too) on scientific principles: if consciousness was acausal (or unidirectionally causal) there would be no evolutionary pressure for it, so it would have to arise purely by coincidence. By the theory's proponents' own admission, any arguments you hear for it can at best be true by coincidence, since if it were true any argument for it would be uncorrelated with it. Finally we note that this argument wouldn't even solve the problems it purports to; any such causal model in which this true consciousness lives would be just as susceptible to the hard problem as the original universe.

Since fairly basic logical reasoning shows us that consciousness is a physically observable, causal system, we can conclude that studying the nature by which the brain interacts with consciousness at least plausibly leads us to an understanding of the processes and systems which underlie conscious experience. This leads to an understanding of panpsychism the same way local studies of gravity and local observations of light fields (through telescopes) have allowed us to discover black holes. With high likelihood we can apply the same understanding and inspective capability that applies to our brain to other, non-brain systems.

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  • +1 The "bidirectionally causal" aspect of our own consciousness is interesting. Do you have a reference or link to more information?
    – Frank Hubeny
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 15:42
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    I don't see how this is related to panpsychism, when you claim that consciousness is purely physical.
    – Yechiam Weiss
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:20
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    @FrankHubeny I don't know who to credit for these ideas, sorry. I do know David Chalmers admitted to most of those, despite somehow holding the contrary position: "Because this explanation applies to a zombie, the existence of consciousness will play no essential role in the explanation." (aka. Should consciousness be acausal, we cannot have evidence that it acausal.) Why he goes from demonstrating that he cannot possible know consciousness is acausal, to certainty that he does, I cannot say.
    – Veedrac
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:22
  • @YechiamWeiss Only the last paragraph is an answer to your question; the first two just preempt likely objections, like "we can't just measure consciousness because it's acausal."
    – Veedrac
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:22
  • @Veedrac so the idea is that physical observation will lead to mental findings? I'm not sure how one could produce the other, and am also not sure about the comparison made to light fields and black holes, and they are both physical, not compared to the first case. It'll hit the same problem as the classic macro-idealism (Chalmers) emergent problem - how can physical lead to mental.
    – Yechiam Weiss
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 17:27
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It will be when we have a clearer idea how consciousnesses arise.

There are proposals to formulate physics solely in terms of information, which could be described as treating things as constitutec of mind.

Models like the P2P simulation hypothesis make concrete predictions, or at least aimed to explain specific observations https://www.p2p-simulation-hypothesis.com

Pansychism historically has not been a niche view, but the majority view. Materialism seems to have arisen out of dualism and reductionism, given stature by their great success in making it easier to do science. Systems, synergies & holisms are perhaps only in very recent times, on the table for science.

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Panpsychism proposes that the fundamental stuff of the universe is matter-consciousness. So it is not metaphysical. Nothing stands behind this fundamental stuff. See Chalmers and Goff, for example. In this interpretation consciousness exists at the quantum level. Quantum entanglement has been suggested as an example of this. So, panpsychism is amenable to experimentation to disprove it. The null hypothesis is that consciousness does not exist at the quantum level. The latest quantum entanglement experiments show entanglement when the entangled particles are separated by 200 km.

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  • The latest quantum entanglement experiments show entanglement when the entangled particles are separated by 200 km. and this is evidence of panpsychism ?
    – TKoL
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 9:15
  • It is evidence of "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein said. The two entangled particles are aware of one another's status independently of the speed of light. This suggests consciousness at this level. Thus the hypothesis can be tested.
    – Meanach
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 9:24
  • If most quantum physicists were panpsychists, this might be something. At the moment, though, quantum physics has a history of being easily co-opted by woo, and this feels very much like that. I like panpsychism, personally - I'm not a panpsychist, but I'm open to it - but I just don't think quantum physics has much to do with it at all. Quantum physics is true, therefor panpsychism is true doesn't seem to be a completely valid take, at least not at the current point in time. Maybe things will change in the future.
    – TKoL
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 9:42
  • As a scientist myself, I know that science is not popularity contest. I think that a paradigm shift is coming. Quantum physics is fundamental to our understanding of the universe, and therefore fundamental to our philosophical understanding. I am sure that things will change in the future. They always do.
    – Meanach
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 9:45
  • Hi there, gotta say it's rather odd to cite Goff as a supporter of "panpsychism is not metaphysics" when he has clear talks in which he distinguishes metaphysical topics, such as panpsychism v. physicalism, from scientific topics such as quantum theory and the standard model.
    – Yechiam Weiss
    Commented Nov 25, 2023 at 15:58

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