Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

Panpsychism and Consciousness: A Critical Analysis

Defining Panpsychism: Mind in All Matter

Can we ever understand consciousness completely, if we deny its essence of a meeting place between finite humans and Infinite Divine Creator of our consciousness?

Panpsychism is the philosophical view that mentality is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality​plato.stanford.edu. In other words, panpsychists hold that consciousness or mind-like properties are intrinsic to all matter at some basic level. The term itself comes from the Greek pan- (“all”) and psyche (“mind” or “soul”), literally meaning “everything has a mind.” In contemporary philosophy of mind, this is usually refined to mean that the basic building blocks of the physical world possess extremely simple forms of experience ​noemamag.com. For example, a human brain yields a high-level, complex consciousness, whereas an electron might possess only the most rudimentary “proto-conscious” experience. Importantly, this does not imply that everyday objects like rocks or chairs are themselves conscious in any rich sense. Rather, it is the particles or fundamental constituents of those objects that harbor minuscule experiential qualities, which in combination constitute the familiar consciousness of higher organisms ​noemamag.com. Panpsychism thus contrasts with the standard materialist view by asserting that mind-like aspects are woven into the fabric of matter itself, instead of emerging only at certain levels of complexity.

This idea presents panpsychism as a middle path between dualism and materialism. Traditional dualism claims that mind and matter are fundamentally different substances (e.g. Descartes’ immaterial mind vs. physical body), but this bifurcation makes it mysterious how they interact. Pure materialism, on the other hand, treats mind as entirely derivative of matter, but struggles to explain how subjective experience could arise from matter that is assumed wholly non-experiential. Panpsychism attempts to avoid both extremes: it retains a unified, naturalistic ontology (only one kind of “stuff,” like materialism) while granting that this stuff has an internal aspect that is mental or experiential (addressing the concern of dualists)​ plato.stanford.edu. In effect, the panpsychist suggests that consciousness did not magically erupt out of non-conscious matter; instead, matter was never truly devoid of mind – even the simplest particles have “mindful” aspects. This intrinsic link between mind and matter is often framed in terms of “panexperientialism” (the idea that experience in some form is universal) ​plato.stanford.edu. Contemporary panpsychists typically focus on basic experience (sentience or “what it’s like to be” something) as the ubiquitous mental aspect, rather than complex thought or intellect, which clearly do not apply to elementary particles​ plato.stanford.edu. In summary, panpsychism posits a cosmos in which consciousness is a fundamental feature of every physical entity, providing a potential foundation for understanding how human minds fit into nature.

Secular Appeal: Panpsychism and the Hard Problem

Panpsychism has gained renewed interest in recent years, especially among secular philosophers of mind, largely as a response to the notorious “hard problem” of consciousness​en.wikipedia.org​ thedebrief.org. The hard problem, as formulated by David Chalmers, is the difficulty of explaining how and why physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience (the “inner” feel of sensations, or qualia). Materialist science has made great strides in describing brain activity and its correlation with behavior, but it still cannot bridge the explanatory gap between objective mechanisms and the reality of first-person consciousness ​thedebrief.org. For many naturalists and atheists, this poses a serious challenge: one wants to account for consciousness without invoking any supernatural soul or divine intervention, yet standard physicalism seems incomplete or unable to fully account for mind. It is in this context that panpsychism’s appeal has resurged. As one science writer observed, “in recent years more and more philosophers seem to have embraced panpsychism” as an alternative framework ​mindmatters.ai. In fact, 21st-century interest in panpsychism has spiked precisely because it offers a way to address the hard problem head-on by fundamentally “building consciousness into the fabric of the universe” rather than treating it as an inexplicable late-emerging anomaly ​en.wikipedia.org.

Secular thinkers are attracted to panpsychism because it promises to “bypass” or dissolve the hard problem, rather than solve it through a speculative miracle. If consciousness is taken as fundamental, we no longer have to explain how it can arise from utter non-consciousness – it was there (in primitive form) all along ​noemamag.com. Philosopher Galen Strawson, for example, argues that a “realistic physicalism” inevitably entails panpsychism, since taking consciousness seriously means acknowledging it as a basic part of nature, not an emergent glitch ​sjsu.edu. Strawson, a self-described naturalist and atheist, reasoned his way from strict materialism to panpsychism by considering that if physics tells us about structure and behavior of matter but is silent on its intrinsic nature, the simplest hypothesis is that this intrinsic nature might be mental or experiential​ noemamag.com​noemamag.com. In his words, “real physicalism…entails panpsychism, and whatever problems are raised by this fact are problems a real physicalist must face.” ​sjsu.edu. He concludes that this view, while initially counter-intuitive, is preferable to the “incoherent… brute emergence” of consciousness from wholly inert matter ​sjsu.edu. Likewise, philosopher Philip Goff (another atheist) has become a leading advocate for panpsychism. Goff maintains that standard materialism has “failed to account for consciousness,” and that we should instead “treat [consciousness] as a fundamental component of the universe, akin to space, time, or mass.”​ thedebrief.org By inverting the usual approach and inserting mind into matter’s basic ontology, Goff believes panpsychism offers a “promising solution” to integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview​ thedebrief.org. Even David Chalmers – who is agnostic on the ultimate solution – has noted that panpsychism, while initially seeming “crazy,” may be a viable option to consider, since it preserves the continuity between mind and nature without invoking miracles. He points out that panpsychism potentially “shares the advantages of both materialism and dualism, with the disadvantages of neither,” if it can overcome its own challenges​ consc.net.

In secular circles, then, panpsychism is seen as an innovative way to uphold a naturalistic explanation of consciousness. It appeals to atheists and agnostics who are dissatisfied with reductionist accounts but who also reject the idea that consciousness requires a supernatural soul or divine spark. By positing that every electron, quark, or field has a mental aspect, panpsychism allows these thinkers to say: Yes, consciousness is real and irreducible, but it’s still part of the natural world all the way down. This idea has fueled what some have called a “full-blown panpsychist renaissance” in philosophy of mind ​noemamag.com. Conferences, books (such as Goff’s Galileo’s Error), and even scientific discussions (e.g. about quantum mechanics and integrated information theory) have revisited panpsychism as a serious theory. It’s important to note that this resurgence is not driven by religious or mystical leanings – rather, it is often explicitly framed as a solution for atheist or agnostic philosophers who otherwise find themselves cornered by the hard problem. In short, panpsychism provides a secular-friendly strategy to “re-enchant” nature with mind, avoiding the need to appeal to any deity or supernatural substance to account for the existence of consciousness​ noemamag.com.

Critiques of Panpsychism: Explanatory and Scientific Challenges

Despite its growing popularity, panpsychism faces numerous philosophical and scientific critiques. Detractors range from staunch materialists to dualists and theologians – all for different reasons – but several common objections emerge. Below are some of the key critiques of panpsychism, concerning its testability, explanatory power, and plausibility:

• The Incredulous Stare (Common-Sense Implausibility): Perhaps the most immediate reaction is that panpsychism “defies common sense.” The notion that inanimate entities like rocks or electrons could have any form of consciousness strikes many as absurd ​thedebrief.org. Philosopher John Searle once quipped that “consciousness cannot be spread across the universe like a thin veneer of jam.” ​noemamag.com Similarly, Wittgenstein dismissed such ideas as mere “image-mongery.” This visceral skepticism – sometimes called the “incredulous stare” – holds that panpsychism’s claim is so strange that, absent compelling evidence, we should reject it out of hand​noemamag.com. While panpsychists counter that science has often defied common sense, critics retort that panpsychism might be indulging in an unintelligible metaphor (attributing “mind” to electrons, etc.) rather than a meaningful hypothesis.
• Dilution of the Concept of Mind: Relatedly, critics argue that panpsychism waters down the concept of consciousness to the point of triviality ​thedebrief.org. If everything is conscious in some sense, one might ask, what distinction is left to mark out the presence of consciousness? The worry is that by stretching “consciousness” to cover the entire range of physical reality, the term loses any useful meaning. Consciousness, ordinarily, is a specific, remarkable phenomenon (with features like unified subjectivity, intentionality, etc.). But if even an electron has a tiny speck of experience, is that the same kind of thing as human consciousness or only an equivocation? Skeptics say panpsychism blurs the line between the truly mental and the merely physical so much that we risk saying nothing insightful at all – just a poetic re-labeling of matter as “mind,” without new explanatory payoff. As one summary put it, “If everything is conscious, then what does it mean to be conscious?” ​ thedebrief.org.
• Lack of Explanatory Power (“Not a Solution at All”): A frequent philosophical charge is that panpsychism does not solve the hard problem or explain consciousness – it merely redefines the problem. The British neuroscientist Anil Seth encapsulated this in blunt terms: “The real problem with panpsychism is not that it seems crazy; it is that it explains nothing and does not generate testable predictions.” ​noemamag.com From this perspective, panpsychism is seen as a kind of sweeping metaphysical assertion that leaves the scientific and explanatory work still undone. It doesn’t tell us why or how fundamental experience combines into higher consciousness, nor how to detect it. It simply stipulates that consciousness is everywhere and thus avoids the need to derive it – a move critics liken to giving up. As one physicist complained, it’s like adding an extra ingredient to reality “that wasn’t there before” without any empirical necessity, making our ontological picture more convoluted ​noemamag.com. Panpsychism’s explanatory gains are therefore questioned: Is it really illuminating to be told that particles have proto-experience? Or does this just rename our ignorance?
• The Combination Problem: Even proponents admit that the “combination problem” is the most challenging puzzle for panpsychism ​plato.stanford.edu. This is the question of how countless tiny conscious or experiential units could combine to form the unified, large-scale consciousness that we human beings (and other animals) undeniably have. Our conscious experience appears to us as a single, integrated subject (a “unity of apperception,” to use Kant’s term). If my brain is composed of billions of micro-conscious particles, why do I experience being one subject, not billions of micro-subjects? William James raised this issue in the 19th century, and it remains a thorn in the side of any panpsychist theory ​plato.stanford.edu. This subject-summing problem has inspired various speculative solutions – for instance, some panpsychists explore whether quantum entanglement might allow particle-minds to merge into a higher-level mind​ noemamag.com. Others, like philosopher Hedda Hassel Mørch and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi (with his Integrated Information Theory), have tried to formulate mechanisms for how “parts” could form a conscious “whole”​ noemamag.com. So far, however, no consensus solution exists, and even sympathetic thinkers like Chalmers note that without a clear answer to the combination problem, panpsychism’s virtues remain largely theoretical​ andzuck.com. Opponents argue that until this is resolved, panpsychism has only postulated a potential way consciousness fits in nature, without concretely showing how complex consciousness emerges – arguably the very thing we wanted explained.
• Unfalsifiability and Scientific Irrelevance: From a scientific standpoint, panpsychism is often criticized for being untestable. Since it posits undetectable inner experiences in particles, it’s unclear what observable predictions this makes. No experiment can directly verify that an electron has a “dim awareness” – the theory is compatible with any and all physical observations, because it concerns an extra, hidden aspect of matter. This raises the concern that panpsychism is not a scientific hypothesis but a metaphysical add-on, one that risks sliding into unfalsifiable territory. Some have even branded it “pseudoscientific” for this reason​ thedebrief.org. The panpsychist can counter that consciousness in any framework (even standard human consciousness) is hard to measure except by inference, and that other philosophies of mind also make unobservable claims (for example, physicalism assumes things like quantum fields have certain properties that we only know by their effects). Indeed, defenders note that panpsychism doesn’t necessarily contradict any current physics ​noemamag.com – it simply interprets the intrinsic nature of physical entities differently. Nonetheless, the lack of a clear empirical handle makes many scientists see panpsychism as a speculative dead-end. As one commentary put it, “panpsychism doesn’t lend itself easily to empirical investigation,” so it remains a philosophical conjecture with little guidance from data​ thedebrief.org. At best, researchers are trying indirect approaches (for instance, looking for signatures of consciousness in simpler organisms or AI, or drawing analogies from quantum phenomena)​thedebrief.org​thedebrief.org, but it’s debatable if these can ever validate panpsychism’s core claim.

In summary, critics contend that panpsychism might be more of a promissory note than a true theory – a promissory note that says “somehow everything is conscious, and one day we’ll understand how that yields human minds.” Until and unless panpsychists can articulate a mechanism for consciousness that is testable or at least conceptually clear, skepticism will remain. Even some philosophers inclined to non-materialist views prefer other options (like dualism or idealism) over panpsychism, on grounds that panpsychism simply relocates the mystery of consciousness to the micro-level without illuminating it. The debate thus centers on whether panpsychism is a profound insight into the nature of mind, or an extravagant speculation that creates as many questions as it purports to answer.

Panpsychism vs Theistic Accounts of Consciousness

Panpsychism’s naturalistic approach to consciousness stands in stark contrast to traditional theistic explanations, which typically attribute consciousness to a soul or divine source rather than to matter itself. In Western religious philosophy and classical metaphysics, consciousness has often been seen as evidence of something immaterial or transcendent in human beings. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), for instance, taught that the human mind is rooted in an immaterial rational soul created by God. He argued that “the essence of the soul is immaterial, [being] created by the supreme intellect” (God) ​newadvent.org, and thus the intellectual power of man has a source beyond the mere elements of the body. For Aquinas, while the soul is the form of the body (giving life and awareness), its higher faculties (intellect and will) cannot be explained by material processes alone and must come from a divine act​newadvent.org. Consciousness and rationality, in this view, are grounded in an immaterial substance (the soul) which is inherently oriented toward the divine.

René Descartes (1596–1650), though writing in a more scientific age, also upheld a form of dualism compatible with theism. Descartes famously identified the mind as a “thinking thing” (res cogitans), an immaterial substance distinct from the physical body ​en.wikipedia.org. He maintained that mind can exist independently of matter – for example, he believed the soul is immortal and bestowed by God, and that the body alone could never produce thought ​en.wikipedia.org​. This Cartesian dualism aligns with the traditional theological idea that humans have a spiritual soul, and it underscores a key difference from panpsychism: for Descartes and many theists, matter by itself is fundamentally mind-less (even animals, in Descartes’ strict view, lack true consciousness or soul), and mind comes from a different, non-physical realm​ en.wikipedia.org​en.wikipedia.org. Consciousness is thus a kind of gift or breath of spirit added to an otherwise mechanical world, ultimately traceable to God’s creative act. Theistic philosophers through the centuries (from Aquinas to Cartesian thinkers, and later ones like Leibniz or modern dualists such as Swinburne) have often seen the mind-body problem as pointing toward a reality of soul and God – a realm of spirit that interacts with the material but is not reducible to it ​en.wikipedia.org​en.wikipedia.org.

In non-Western and Islamic philosophy, we see similar themes. Al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), a prominent Islamic theologian, rejected the philosophers’ attempts to make mind purely natural. He espoused occasionalism, the doctrine that no creaturely interaction has autonomous causal power – instead, God directly causes every event, including every mental event ​iep.utm.edu​iep.utm.edu. In this framework, when you feel pain or form an intention, it is not because your matter inherently produces it, but because God on that occasion implants the experience or enacts the will in your soul. Al-Ghazālī’s view effectively makes God the immediate source of all consciousness and perception, denying that matter itself could ever generate awareness ​iep.utm.edu. While occasionalism is an extreme form of divine involvement (even more radical than dualism, since it denies any real causal power to matter), it highlights how strongly theistic traditions tended to link consciousness to the divine. The soul (nafs or rūḥ in Islamic terms) was seen as a spiritual substance granted and maintained by God, not an emergent property of material components.

The core difference between panpsychism and these theistic perspectives is clear: panpsychism is thoroughly naturalistic – it seeks to explain consciousness from within the physical universe itself, attributing mental aspects to matter – whereas theistic views treat consciousness as an indication of something that transcends physical matter (an immaterial soul, or direct action of a Mind beyond the world). In effect, panpsychism says “matter itself has mind”, whereas classical theism says “mind comes from an immaterial soul or God.” For a panpsychist, there is no sharp ontological divide between matter and mind – they are two facets of the same underlying reality. For a Thomist or Cartesian, there is a profound divide: mind belongs to the spiritual order, matter to the physical, and any consciousness in the world ultimately traces back to the influence of a higher Mind (God) or the creation of immaterial souls. This also means the explanatory direction is different. A theist might argue that human consciousness is so rich and purposeful that it reflects the divine (made in the image of God, as in Judeo-Christian thought) or at least requires a supernatural explanation. Panpsychism instead tries to explain that richness by accumulation – lots of little conscious bits adding up – without invoking anything beyond the natural cosmos.

It is worth noting that panpsychism and theism are not necessarily mutually exclusive in all forms. Some philosophers have explored hybrid views (for instance, process theologians influenced by Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychism see the universe as having a psychic aspect pervaded by God’s presence). However, in the modern context of our discussion, panpsychism is usually advanced as an alternative to theistic or dualistic accounts – a way to account for mind without postulating a supernatural soul or creator. Contemporary theistic philosophers like Richard Swinburne, J.P. Moreland, or William Hasker continue to defend dualism and argue that the best explanation of consciousness is that we have immaterial souls (often conjoined with the idea that God is the source of these souls)​ en.wikipedia.org. They would view panpsychism as at best an unnecessary complication, and at worst as an attempt to avoid acknowledging a spiritual dimension to reality. Theistic arguments often maintain that matter alone, however arranged, cannot produce consciousness, hence the need for a soul or divine input. Panpsychism rejects this by saying matter is never “alone” – it always includes the spark of consciousness inherently. This contrast encapsulates a deep philosophical divergence: is consciousness a fundamental natural property (panpsychism), or a sign of the supernatural (theism)? Each side offers a very different answer to why we, as conscious beings, exist in the way we do.

Solution or Desperate Move? Assessing Panpsychism’s Role

Finally, we turn to the critical evaluation: Does panpsychism represent a genuinely plausible solution to the mind–body problem, or is it a “desperate metaphysical move” adopted to avoid conceding a transcendent mind or soul? The verdict remains divided, and much depends on one’s philosophical priors.

On one hand, proponents argue that panpsychism is a serious and credible proposal, not a mere last resort. They point out that the mind–body problem has resisted solution for decades (if not centuries), and that it may require “thinking outside the box” of traditional materialism. Galen Strawson and Philip Goff would contend that panpsychism is no more extravagant than postulating quantum physics was in the early 20th century – it sounds strange, but it might be true. They see it not as a desperate move, but as a principled inference: since consciousness undeniably exists and cannot be coherently emerged from absolute non-consciousness, it must be that consciousness (in primitive form) was a basic feature of reality to begin with ​sjsu.edu​sjsu.edu. Strawson famously wrote that after long reluctance he embraced panpsychism because “there is no alternative short of ‘substance dualism’” – i.e. if one wants to remain a monist and a “real” physicalist who acknowledges consciousness, panpsychism is the logical path​sjsu.edu. In this light, panpsychism can be seen as a bold but rational hypothesis aimed at finally integrating subjective experience into our worldview. It also has the virtue of parsimony in kinds: instead of two fundamentally different substances (matter and mind), there is one kind of stuff with two aspects. Philosophers like David Chalmers, while not fully endorsing panpsychism, have given it serious consideration, suggesting that if the combination problem can be solved, “it becomes a lead contender” as the true theory of consciousness ​andzuck.com. This respectful engagement from leading thinkers indicates that panpsychism is not merely a fringe notion born of desperation, but a legitimate competitor in the philosophical arena of consciousness studies.

On the other hand, skeptics see panpsychism as an almost ad hoc retreat, motivated less by positive evidence and more by an aversion to the alternatives (especially dualism or theism). The phrase “desperate metaphysical move” reflects the view that panpsychism is what one adopts “for want of anything better,” to avoid accepting a potentially unwelcome conclusion ​iep.utm.edu. Indeed, in the history of ideas, some have analogized panpsychism to the old occasionalist strategy: when interaction problems seemed unsolvable, occasionalists invoked God to miraculously handle it (a move deemed “laughable” by later critics) ​iep.utm.edu. Similarly, a critic might say, when faced with the hard problem, panpsychists simply declare that matter had consciousness all along – effectively solving the problem by fiat. From this perspective, panpsychism might appear as a “metaphysical desperate measure” of atheists who refuse to countenance a non-natural explanation for mind. By this account, panpsychism’s rise isn’t because it has strong evidence in its favor; rather, it’s because materialists hit a wall and are unwilling to consider immaterial minds or a creator. Some theistic philosophers argue exactly this: e.g., J.P. Moreland contends that if one is rational, the existence of irreducible consciousness is better explained by the presence of a soul or a designing Mind (God) than by dotting the universe with countless little consciousnesses. To such thinkers, panpsychism avoids the inference to God or soul by proliferating minds everywhere as a kind of evasion. It could be characterized as “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”: since materialism couldn’t explain consciousness, declare consciousness a fundamental physical property – a move that, to critics, sidesteps the real explanatory gap under a sweeping assumption.

In judging between these views, it’s important to note that panpsychism remains a speculative approach. It has not yet offered concrete, predictive mechanisms for how human-like consciousness arises from simple components – thus it remains incomplete. Whether one sees it as promising or desperate may hinge on one’s philosophical temperament. A person deeply committed to naturalism may view panpsychism as a brave theoretical step that preserves monism and avoids invoking the supernatural, with the “desperation” label being unfair – after all, every theory starts somewhere, and many good theories began as strange ideas. They would argue that exploring panpsychism could spur new insights (for example, inspiring neuroscientists to consider novel principles of integration or inspiring physicists to rethink the nature of matter) ​noemamag.com. On the flip side, a person open to dualism or theism might see panpsychism as unnecessarily contrived. If one is allowed to posit essentially invisible conscious properties in electrons, why not posit an invisible soul in humans instead (which at least directly accounts for our consciousness)? To such a critic, panpsychism might indeed look like a refusal to follow the evidence (i.e. the unique status of consciousness) to a transcendental conclusion, and instead multiplying entities without empirical support.

In conclusion, panpsychism occupies an intriguing and controversial place in the modern discourse on consciousness. It represents a good-faith attempt by secular philosophers to naturalize the mind without eliminating or trivializing it. It challenges the conventional materialist paradigm and forces us to reconsider assumptions about mind and matter. Major thinkers like Strawson, Goff, and Chalmers have ensured that it gets a serious hearing, while its detractors highlight legitimate concerns about its coherence and empirical relevance. Whether panpsychism is a profound insight or a metaphysical Hail Mary remains to be seen. It could turn out to be a fruitful component of a future “theory of consciousness,” or it could join the long list of discarded philosophical curiosities. For now, its value might be this: by pushing the envelope, panpsychism keeps the conversation open and reminds us that consciousness might demand a fundamental rethinking of our ontology – be that a turn toward ubiquitous mind, or (as the theists would have it) a turn toward a Mind beyond the universe. In either case, the debate drives home that consciousness is a uniquely perplexing phenomenon at the intersection of philosophy, science, and theology – one that provokes either ingenious solutions or desperate moves, depending on one’s point of view.

Sources: Panpsychism defined​ plato.stanford.edu​ noemamag.com; secular resurgence and hard problem​en.wikipedia.org​ thedebrief.org; Strawson’s and Goff’s views​ sjsu.edu​thedebrief.org; critiques by Seth and others​noemamag.com​ thedebrief.org; combination problem ​plato.stanford.edu; Descartes and dualism ​en.wikipedia.org​en.wikipedia.org; Aquinas on soul ​newadvent.org; occasionalism and divine mind​ iep.utm.edu.

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