A Bridge between Science and Consciousness
Well, well, what are we now hearing? “The universe itself is conscious”? This is all about a new scientific concept that is taking shape and is called “panpsychism”. The concept 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 has 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 in spirit. A proto-consciousness field could extend throughout all space as per the report of futurism. In simple terms it means that the entire cosmos could be self-aware. Stars may be thinking entities that deliberately control their paths. Put more bluntly, the entire cosmos may be self-aware.
Cognitive scientist, David Chalmers and British Physicist, Sir roger Penrose and neuroscientist Christof Koch from the Allen Institute of Brain science are all supporters of panpsychism. According to Koch, organisms are conscious because they can change their behaviour in order to save themselves from adverse situations. In this context, he intends to perform a number of 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 own state and determine its own fate. The theory however 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.
As of now, panpsychism is in the early phase and, if proved is capable of shaking the world of science to its core.
