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Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2023

DAMIAN ALEKSIEV Open the ORCID record for DAMIAN ALEKSIEV [Opens in a new window]
DAMIAN ALEKSIEV*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper presents a novel argument against one theoretically attractive form of panpsychism. I argue that ‘idealist panpsychism’ is false because it cannot account for spacetime's structure. Idealist panpsychists posit that fundamental reality is purely experiential. Moreover, they posit that consciousness at the fundamental level metaphysically grounds and explains both the facts of physics and the facts of human consciousness. I argue that if idealist panpsychism is true, human consciousness and consciousness at the fundamental level will have the same metrical structure. However, as I demonstrate, human consciousness does not exhibit the same metrical structure as spacetime. Consequently, the idealist panpsychist faces an explanatory gap between the fundamental consciousness she posits and spacetime. Idealist panpsychism is incompatible with the existence of such an explanatory gap. Thus, idealist panpsychists must either close this explanatory gap (which I argue they lack the resources to do), or idealist panpsychism is false.

Keywords

panpsychismspacetimeexplanatory gapgroundingidealismphilosophy of mindmetaphysics
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 615 - 636
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

I am especially grateful to Philip Goff for his comments and many invaluable discussions on panpsychism. Many thanks also to Miri Albahari, Hanoch Ben-Yami, Tim Crane, Zhiwei Gu, Aditya Jha, Joel Katzav, Hedda Hassel Mørch, Howard Robinson, the audiences at Utrecht University (10th European Congress of Analytic Philosophy) and at the University of Kent (94th Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association), and all the anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.

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