Dr. Gregory L. Matloff, emeritus associate and adjunct associate professor of physics at New York City College of Technology, presents a model of panpsychism in which a universal, ubiquitous proto-consciousness field interacts with molecular bonds through fluctuation pressure of the quantum vacuum, known as the Casimir effect. A measurable example is the anomaly of the motion of stars known as  Parenago’s discontinuity. 

It has been observed that cooler stars, such as our sun, move in their galactic orbit somewhat faster than hotter ones.  This velocity difference seems to occur at stellar temperatures where molecular spectral lines become apparent. Many stars are simply too hot to allow atoms to adhere and form molecules, and in this model, molecules seem to be the key.   Dr. Matloff suggests that a conscious, volitionary star could alter its galactic trajectory by the emission of a unidirectional jet. Such jets have been observed in young, cool stars.

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Princeton University professor, John Archibald Wheeler, who is also professor emeritus at the University of Texas in Austin, studied with Niels Bohr at the University of Copenhagen, and was the first American involved in the theoretical development of the atomic bomb. He also originated a novel approach to the unified field theory and popularized the term Black Hole.

In Wheeler’s view every piece of matter, organic or inorganic contains a bit of consciousness which it absorbs from a proto-consciousness field. Wheeler originated the “participatory anthropic principle," which says that the human observer is key to the process of consciousness. He said, “we are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago." In his view, much like the oneness of  Buddhism, nothing exists unless there is a consciousness to apprehend it.

 

The physicist Dr. Roger Penrose,  advocates for the proto-consciousness field.  While he stops short of calling himself a panpsychist, he does state that, “The laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it." This guy is a  Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, so who am I to argue?  

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Consciousness is more widespread than previously assumed. So says neuroscientist Christof Koch, Chief Scientist and President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and author of The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed. “Consciousness pervades the universe. Maybe even atoms are conscious.”

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New York University philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers is likewise a proponent of panpsychism, which he sees  as having the best properties of Physicalism, or Materialistic Monism, which posits that that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and Dualism, which states that the mental (spiritual) and the physical are different kinds of things.

“(Panpsychism) has some aspects of Physicalism and some aspects of Dualism… Like Physicalism I think you have this simple ontology and basic physical particulars and properties connected by laws. Like… property Dualism you have a dualism of the intrinsic properties which constitute consciousness and these relational properties that constitute physical structures…”

I’ll leave philosophy to the philosophers, but it sure makes sense.

 

Some believe that panpsychism to be nonsensical.  Professor Philip Goff might agree.  Dr. Goff is a philosophy professor at Central European University in Budapest and Durham University in England, author of Consciousness and Fundamental Reality and Galileo’s Error as well as over forty academic papers. However, Dr. Goff adds  just because something is nonsensical does not mean that it isn’t reality. He believes that while panpsychism may run counter to common sense, “why should we think common sense is a good guide to what the universe is like? Einstein tells us weird things about the nature of time that counters common sense; quantum mechanics runs counter to common sense. Our intuitive reaction isn’t necessarily a good guide to the nature of reality.”