What if consciousness isn’t a mysterious aspect of the universe—but its very foundation? In this thought-provoking talk, a philosopher challenges conventional science and revives a bold, forgotten theory: that consciousness pervades all matter. From quarks to brains, could experience be woven into the fabric of reality itself? Prepare to question everything you thought you knew about the mind—and your place in the cosmos. Philip is a professor of philosophy at Durham University, UK. His research focuses on consciousness and the ultimate nature of reality. He’s best known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. Philip has published many academic articles and written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, The Guardian, and Aeon. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at
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Galileo's views have had nothing to do with the sciences of psychology, biology or neuroscience. Panpsychism is incoherent. Conscious experience is entirely restricted to organisms.
No. There, I saved you 16 minutes.
Just another religion
Superficial. Quantum Theory founders have said that Consciousness is fundamental to the Universe. Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist philosopy has said this thousands of years ago. And Aristotle only dominated Western thought – another fallacy in your argument. Its astonising that you have nt recognized that Asia is equally important as the West – another pardigm shift which some Western 'intellectuals' fail to realize.
I have trouble with he concept 'nature' as he seems to mean it. I mean what would the nature of a marshmallow be? Perhaps yhe idea of significance' might be better. But then, I trip myself up with being judgemental Is it possible that ignorance is the highest form of consciousness?
There is the concept that consciousness is non-local. I heard it summarized as "we have consciousness not because of our brain, but in spite of our brain". There is the idea that the brain is a limited sort of "receiver /antenna" of non-local consciousness. This comes out of near death experience studies I believe. It is quite plausible. Therefore, when the brain goes off-line as in near death or deep meditation, we get an expanded sense of consciousness. The bandwidth increases as the brain influence reduces. Quite interesting.
Quantum field theory seem to be closing the gap between classical physics and the conscious experience. Would love to be around for the next decade or two to see the marriage.
So what he’s saying is that not only does every tree have a form of consciousness, but that every element in that tree has its own consciousness as well. And by extension, not only does every human have their own consciousness but every element of each of us has its own consciousness as well. Does my stomach have its own consciousness? What’s the boundary between each consciousness? This stretches believability though. 🤔
are the feudal lords trying to figure out how to push you out of your own head?
Leading with a reference to Russell is ridiculous – spend sometime with his supervisor Whitehead – he will help reconcile the absurd.
OrchOR
After 30 years of investigation of my own conscousness, with a background in neuroscience and a reasonable understanding of physics, I've come to appreciate that the central problem here is one of semantics. We (including, sadly and frustratingly, many 'experts' in the various relevant fields) use the word "consciousness" far too imprecisely. The Pan-Psychist view also falls into this trap. When one dives deeply into exploring one's own awareness, one reaches a state of awareness which is unlike any of the states we normally label as "conscious".
Awreness does not necessarily have to involve experience OF anything. In meditation, prayer (the via negativa), psychedelic and near-death experiences, all of the day-to-day type experience we are so familiar with, that which we refer to as "conscious" experience can be shed. Yet, awareness remains. Infact it is quite possible to experience a form of awareness which has no content whatever, not even the 'awareness of itself' beloved by many religious and philosophers. This form of awareness experiences, at once (though not through 'time') all of everything and no-thing-ness. It is of itself, has no 'qualia' and anything that can be said about it can only be added once the experience has been exited.
All of the qualia mentioned by the speaker (smell of coffee, taste of mint, redness of sunset. etc.) have physical/chemical qualities which can be said to exist outside of my awareness of them. The grand mystery, the "hard problem" is not about the various qualia, but rather what is the most fundamental type of awareness? and, once that has been appreciated, how does that awareness interact with physical/chemical/temporal and spatial functions to produce the conscious experience of 'things'?
The model of pure awareness as a 'field' is appealing. On the one hand, the experience of this form of pure, raw, un-conditioned awareness is the most extraordinary and profound occurrence of a lifetime. On the other hand, there is nothing to say about awareness, until such 'time' as it becomes entangled or somehow invvolved with the universe of time, space and matter. Idealists believe that this awareness creates the universe of time/space and matter. My own impression is very much that both time and space are functions of the entangled awareness (which may now be called consciousness), these functions allow awareness to 'sample' parts of the totality of being in a sequential (usually) and local (usually) way. This is what produces the 'qualia' and it is also what allows 'us' as individualized 'partial consciousnesses' (dissosciated consciousnesses to use Bernardo Kastrup's term) to have the experience of living, of interacting with each other and of the material world which we all enjoy so much.
the great mystery is not what is CONSCIOUSNESS, but rather what is the nature of the raw awareness which underlies it? I do not believe objects 'have' consciousness- in that they do not experince anything that we, as human beings, customarily think of as conscious experience. Our 'consciousness' is very predicated on our complexity, our temporary coherence and the physical/chemical and thus physiological/anatomical aspects of our being.
It is, however, part of the experience of raw, unconditioned awareness to realize that it is "not me, not mine", but something wholly independent. What is 'mine' is my individual conscious experience, which is shaped by my unique biology, history, thoughts, views, ideas. interactions etc.
I believe it is of fundamental and crucial importance to understand the differenec between these two if we are ever to begin to truly understand the nature of reality. ❤
I feel I don't get anything concrete from this video.
What is consciousness..?
You talk about neuro transmitters distortion
..let me save you all 16 minutes and 9 seconds. ..NO!
Sometimes, we look for one thing, one shiny, spherical object. We have been searching for so long that some one of us will hold the truth in our hands and dismiss it for the trill of the hunt. Is this a matter of you? Or you can't relate to it? The awakening of the mind is coming and it's inevitable. The new Galilei of the qualitative world will make you see the other dimension that you're dismissing
Sorry – this all sounds like a word salad to me. Assign the most rudimentary level of consciousness to electrons and the like and aren't you back where you started, with no idea of what consciousness is?
We are the hyper connected points of consciousness, thats neurons. we are the consciousness thats complex enough to be aware of its self. we are trying to connect further by connecting to the other hyper connected points of consciousness (other humans) and we do this through language through art in the visual dimension and art in the sound dimension. when poeple look at art that is the way it is beacouse of the person who created its mind they are connecting with the artits mind (concentrated points of connections connecting)its speeding up too the internet is a massive hub of connecting minds
Thing is. All we know is our experience. Not the experience of anything else. For all we know a small could have a conscious experience that is more involved than we can even imagine. Point is we do not know because we can not experience it. And we will never know.
Consciousness, Life, and Intelligence can only come from a greater Consciousness, Life, and Intelligence (God) which includes Morality, Metaphysics, and Free-Will(limited)
Yea I don't listen to Deterministic Unguided Evolved Brain Chemicals which lack Metaphysics
No brain no consciousness. zilch. Even trivial molecules like ethanol or TMP affect you brain hence your consicousness.
Panpsychism is like religion, has no value. Either you believe it or not. This speech is a shame on part of TEDx talks.
What I really want to find out is, while I'm dreaming I meet people that I never met before, or may not even exist and I have conversations with them. How is that possible. It is mostly more intense then being around real people while I'm awake. I have lots of small dreams that in my mind last for Hours and then I check my Watch and its 5 Minutes later. So, I love dreaming. I can't provoke it it just comes as it does.
Met a woman with short blond hair as a new neighbour in my dreams 2 days ago. She had an accent and so I found out after asking her she was Latvian and had a heart attack 6 Years ago but she was doing fine now.
Does it do damage? I want to meet her again..
Do we actually miss people we meet in dreams?
It took him 16 minutes to tell me what I already knew: Science can't explain consciousness. They just say it's an emergent property of the brain, which is another way of saying the same thing but it sounds like they found the answer.
I love you ❤
Katherine Solomon
"Use the force, Luke."
Pseudoscience nonsense. HOW do we have consciousness without neurons? This guy doesn't explain how.
Pan psychism is the silliest idea I have heard of in my whole life.
I had "near life experience"
Bs
It is a very hard question.
Because, I think ours conscieniness are quantic with quantic algoritms.
It depends by atoms.
The life emerges from atoms.
Boss talk La! I'm made up for ya! Now g'wed'n get some scran!
In the end we still have no idea what consciousness is. You just gave it a name: panpsychism.
Physics doesn't describe the world with equations, the world describes equations with Physics. Math doesn't describe objective reality, but rather our perception of it. This goes to the (false) question of if math is invented or discovered. The question is faulty because it assumes a mutual exclusion that doesn't exist. If we perceive two objects we say that there are two apples for example, but in truth those "objects" are really just aggregates of some very large quantity of smaller "objects" that we cannot perceive, even with our most capable instrumentation. Quantum behavior exists objectively, but can't be properly modeled mathematically because at the point where our perception crosses the event horizon we can only start talking about "infinity."
Panpsychism is basically what most Shamanisms of Aborigines in the world believe
Quisas!
If panpsychism were true, AI would be conscious, but it is not! The consciousness field was created by us, to be received by our creation – Us. Immortality is tough. We need you mortals to keep us sane.