Well, well, what are we now hearing? “The universe itself is conscious”? This view is all about a new scientific concept taking shape and is called “panpsychism”. The idea of panpsychism is the perception that the universe itself has some degree of consciousness. Is traditional material science going to take a somersault?
The scientist who introduced this twist is Gregory Matloff, a physicist at New York City College of Technology. Matloff, in his paper entitled “Can Panpsychism Become an Observational Science?” (Journal of consciousness exploration and research, vol.7, No. 7, 2016) opines that humans could be like the rest of the universe, in substance and spirit. A proto-consciousness field (shall be explained in another post) could extend throughout all space as per the futurism report. In simple terms, it means that the entire cosmos could be self-aware.
Support to panpsychism comes from Christof Koch from the Allen Institute of Brain science. According to him, organisms are conscious because they can change their behaviour to save themselves from adverse situations. In this context, he intends to perform several experiments to measure the level of consciousness of organisms and whether the information will flow between two brains wired together as in a fused, integrated system.
Koch argues that consciousness is associated with complexity; in fact, the system’s ability to act upon its state and determine its own fate. However, the theory states that it could percolate down to simple systems so much so that even purely physical systems, which are not biological or organic, may also be conscious (see another post for clarity and explanation).
Panpsychism though in the early phase, could shake the world of science to its core if proved.
