Links and Web Resources

Please note that I don't intend to update or post on this blog on a regular basis any more (too much to do in 'meat-space' for me at the moment!).

If you come across any interesting links or news in relation to panexperientialism, please feel free to post a comment below.

INTRODUCTORY

Why I became a Panexperientialist by Charles Birch

Panpsychism by William Seager (encyclopedia article)

Panpsychism by David Skrbina (encyclopedia article)

PHILOSOPHICAL

Panpsychism by T.L.S. Sprigge (encyclopedia article)

Panexperientialist Physicalism and the Mind-Body problem by David Ray Griffin

Consciousness, Information and Panpsychism by William Seager

Panpsychism by William Seager (his most recent paper on the topic).

Why Physicalism entails Panpsychism by Galen Strawson

Recent Naturalistic Dualisms by William Lycan. Although no fan of panpsychism, Lycan argues that the most coherent form of property dualism implies panpsychism.

Online papers on Panpsychism compiled by David Chalmers.

WHITEHEADIAN PERSPECTIVES

Whitehead by John Cobb

Whitehead and the revival(?) of Panpsychism by William Seager

Whitehead's even more dangerous idea by Peter Fairleigh

Everything is Permuted
Website of Paul Cecil with numerous Whitehead/Hartshorne links

Center for Process Studies The Center is a faculty of Claremont School of Theology. Focus on Whitehead, Hartshorne and Process Theology. Extensive resources.

NONWHITEHEADIAN PERSPECTIVES

Participation, Organization, and Mind: Toward a Participatory Worldview by David Skrbina. Interesting panpsychist theory based on ideas from chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics. Also contains an excellent history of panpsychism.

A place for Consciousness
by Gregg Rosenberg. Explores the problems of causation and consciousness, leading to a panexperientialist solution.

Group Reading of Gregg Rosenberg's book (Physics Forums).

GENERAL SCIENCE

A Purpose For Everything by Charles Birch. On-line book examining purpose in nature.

Nature and Purpose by John F. Haught. Book with similar themes to that of Birch. Some chapters may not appeal to the secular minded.

Guide to Reality Science and philosophy blog with numerous panexperientialism related posts.

BIOLOGY/NEUROSCIENCE

Mind in Nature: the Interface of Science and Philosophy
Online book with various contributors. Edited by John B. Cobb Jr and David R. Griffin

Processing Towards Life by Charles Birch. Examines Self-organisation and subjectivity.

Embodied Human Consciousness, Abrupt Global Climate Change, and Freedom
Website of physiologist David Stoney which covers climate change issues as well as neurophysiology from a Whiteheadian panexperientialist perspective.

Psychological Physiology From the Standpoint of a Physiological Psychologist
by George Wolf

Whitehead'Psychological Physiology: A Third View by William Gallagher.
Relates how individual occasions of experience might give rise to the unified experience of human consciousness. Addresses (although in an indirect fashion) what Philosopher William Seager has described as the "Combination Problem".

Single-neuron Theory of Consciousness by Steven Sevush.
Proposes that the full content of conscious experience may be a property of individual neurons and that this would present a solution to the 'binding' problem.

Is Consciousness Only a Property of Individual Cells? by Jonathon CW Edwards.
Similar theme to previous paper, with more emphasis on the physics that might be involved.

See also website of Stuart Hameroff (under 'Physics').

CHEMISTRY

Self-Organization and Agency: In Chemistry and In Process Philosophy
by Joseph E. Earley

Towards a Process Philosophy of Chemistry by Ross Stein


PHYSICS

Online papers of Whitehead-influenced Quantum Physicist Henry Stapp

Quantum Consciousness Website of Stuart Hameroff, with focus on Hameroff-Pensrose microtubule/quantum model of consciousness.

Process Physics School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University. I have not tried to understand this stuff but apparently it has affinities with Whitehead's views, although arrived at independently.

MEDICINE/HEALTH

The Power of Thought to Heal:An Ontology of Personal Faithby Arthur Preston Smith. Psychosomatic healing from a panexperientialist perspective.

Nietzsche's Naturalism

Brian Leiter's draft paper "Nietzsche's Naturalism Reconsidered" is an engaging look at the issue of "whether and in what sense Nietzsche is a naturalist in philosophy". Leiter contends that perhaps the most worrying obstacle in reading Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist is his doctrine of the Will To Power and the "crackpot metaphysics" that some interpretations of this doctrine may imply.

In this post, I intend to argue that a metaphysical interpretation of the Will to Power ('MIWTP'), in which 'the world is will to power', is both consistent with Nietzsche's naturalism and of contemporary relevance.

The Scope of Nietzsche's Naturalism

Drawing on his earlier work, Leiter characterises Neitzsche's naturalism as Speculative Methodical Naturalism ('M- Naturalism'). Leiter describes M-Naturalism as the view that “philosophical inquiry…should be continuous with empirical inquiry in the sciences”. Speculative M-naturalists want to construct theories that are "modeled on the sciences…in that they take over from science the idea that natural phenomena have deterministic causes”. Speculative M-Naturalists do not appeal to actual causal mechanisms that have been scientifically confirmed (because their theories are speculative), but their explanations are bound by the constraint "that they not invoke entities or mechanisms that science has ruled out of bounds."

I am very much in agreement in reading Nietzsche as a M-Naturalist and am glad to see his philosophy being rescued from the excesses of postmodernist irrationalism (though as an aside, I think Nietzsche's M-Naturalism might better be characterized as being committed to natural, rather than deterministic causes, given his skepticism about deterministic laws). However, I think legitimate questions can be asked regarding whether Nietzsche's naturalism extends further than this.

Leiter raises the question of whether, if Nietzsche is a skeptic about what he takes to be the underlying metaphysics of science, how could he then be a naturalist who takes science seriously? Yet, not invoking entities or mechanisms that science has ruled out of bounds does not preclude the critical examination and possible displacement of the metaphysical presuppositions underlying scientific explanations (even if this activity itself is not part of science). Of course, in order to qualify being described as such, their are some assumptions which must be endorsed by a philosophical naturalist, such as belief in some form of causation (as Leiter explains). However, there may be other metaphysical assumptions which are conventionally accepted as being part of science which could be rejected without compromising an explanation being naturalistic in character.

Whilst it would obviously take more than a short blog post to give this issue full justice, that Nietzsche's naturalism did incorporate questioning the metaphysical assumptions of science is supported by the "We scholars" chapter of "Beyond Good and Evil". In this chapter, Nietzsche says the man of science or "objective man" is a "mirror: accustomed to submitting to whatever wants to be known", and an "instrument, something of a slave, certainly the sublimest kind of slave, but in himself he is nothing" (Aphorism 207). Nietzsche castigates those who would have science "taking upon itself to lay down laws for philosophy and for once to play the 'master'... to play the philosopher itself" (204).

Overall, I think the chapter supports the view that Nietzsche's naturalism is one that is against the unwarranted priority of science over philosophy, and is open to the critical examination, displacement and transformation of the metaphysical assumptions underlying science. Of course, in line with Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical stance any such alternate metaphysical assumptions would, like scientific theories themselves, not be presented as absolute, transcendent truths but would be open to further critical revision and transformation (BGE 22, 43,211).

The World as Will To Power

Turning now to the issue of whether Nietzsche did in fact endorse a metaphysical interpretation of the Will to Power, Leiter says that he is hopeful that the "crackpot metaphysics is really presented in an ironic spirit, and that Nietzsche, the otherwise sound naturalist, knew better." This hope is based primarily on the view that the doctrine is based on premises that Nietzsche explicitly rejects in his published works and that Nietzsche assigns the MIWTP no significance in his own appraisal of his corpus. In his analysis, Leiter also addresses the significance of an apparently metaphysical interpretation of the WTP in II:12 of the Genealogy of Morals.

Leaving aside the issue of what significance should be placed on unpublished works in the case of Nietzsche (whose productive life was cut short with many ideas still under development, with the developmental stages of such ideas perhaps being explanatory of why they are not addressed in his reflective self-appraisals), I think a good case can be made for the MIWTP both having a significant role in and being consistent with his published corpus. Although rigorous philosophers such as Clark have argued against this, others such as Schacht have cogently argued for it. Schacht's references to the unpublished works in his analysis do not, I think, significantly detract from his argument for the coherence of MIWTP with Nietzsche's other ideas.

In Leiter's analysis of GMII:12, he argues that the fact that MIWTP is only mentioned in that single passage in the book, coupled with Clark's critique, supports the view that II:12 was included for rhetorical purposes and perhaps "should not be taken too seriously at all". Yet, the Genealogy of Morals is restricted in scope, as its name suggests, and in order to assess Nietzsche's commitment to MIWTP it is appropriate to address a book with a broader philosophical compass, such as his ''Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future", Beyond Good and Evil.

From a sympathetic reading of Part One of this book ("On the Prejudices of Philosophers"), along with aphorism 36 of the following chapter, it can plausibly be argued that Nietzsche is not only critiquing conventional metaphysical and scientific presuppositions relating to such topics as physical laws, atomism, substance, free will, causation and the metaphysical biases of subject-predicate grammar, but also offering a tentative alternative metaphysical hypothesis consistent with this critique (aphorisms 13, 19,22 , 23 and 36 being most relevant to this alternate hypothesis). Thus, Nietzsche here speaks of an interpretation embracing "the universality and unconditionality of all will to power", in which " all efficient force" could be defined as such, with the world described according to its intelligible character being "will to power and nothing else".

Hence, it seems to me that Beyond Good and Evil supports the view that Nietzsche regarded the MIWTP as something which, whilst not fully developed, was of considerable significance to his philosophical project.

Is a Metaphysical Interpretation of The Will to Power Consistent with Speculative Methodological Naturalism?

In analysing the issue of the coherence of the MIWTP with Neitzsche's M-Naturalism, aphorism 22 of BGE is of interest. In comparing the view that the regularities of nature are a consequence of conformity to laws or of the "inexorable enforcement of power demands", Nietzsche makes the point that the latter interpretation would also assert that the world has a "necessary" and "calculable" course. He questions the ontological status of physical laws as externally imposed constraints and asks whether regularities could more appropriately be characterized as being a consequence of the internal dynamics of natural events. This is very reminiscent of Whitehead's depiction of physical laws as the "habits of nature".

So this passage can be read as Nietzsche as offering an interpretation which is consistent with the 'calculable course of events' investigated by M-Naturalism but which entails a different set of metaphysical assumptions than that conventionally accepted by science. This is not a view which contradicts M-Naturalism but instead one in which the intrinsic experiential dynamic of physical events (in which the world "seen from within" is will to power) runs parallel to their outer character described by the physical sciences.

Whilst this 'parallelist' reading of MIWTP is consistent with and complementary to M-Naturalism, there are passages where Nietzsche appears to be saying that the WTP is an additional causal factor over and above the forces and processes described by the physical sciences. For instance, GM11:12 appears to impute to the WTP, in relation to the physiological and adaptive processes of life, a causal role that is distinct from known biological mechanisms. This would appear to be in contradiction with the generally held tenet of biology that life can be explained mechanistically in terms that are ultimately reducible to the work of natural selection on physical processes governed by laws operating at the microphysical level (an issue I previously discussed in this post).

However, this issue relates not to the MIWTP being incorrect in toto, but rather that a particular inference derived from MIWTP, proferred in accordance with the speculative spirit of Speculative M-Naturalism, has turned out to be erroneous and should be disregarded. On the other hand, the MIWTP doesn't discount the possibility that nature may turn out to operate differently from what one would expect from reductionist assumptions ( through mechanisms such as top down causation or strong emergence). Of course, it is a matter for science to investigate whether such phenomena which may be consistent with MIWTP do in fact exist.

Contemporary Relevance

In relation to the issue of whether the MIWTP has any relevance to contemporary philosophical positions that seek consistency with modern science, I do not think the panexperientialist implications of this interpretation detract from its potential relevance. Espousal or interest in panexperientialism from contemporary philosophers within the analytic tradition such as Galen Strawson, David Chalmers, Gregg Rosenberg, David Skrbina and William Seager show that this topic is now a legitimate area of mainstream philosopical inquiry.

In assessing the relevance of MWITP, reference again to the philosophy of Whitehead is apposite. A strong analogy can be made between the concresing 'actual occasions' of Whitehead and quanta of will to power (see here for example). Therefore, I think there is a potential for the MIWTP to form a basis for a salient and coherent metaphysics of the world that is consistent with modern science to the same extent that Whitehead's philosophy has this potential.

Conclusion

In view of the above, I think a strong case can be made that a metaphysical interpretation of the Will to Power is consistent with the methodological naturalism of Nietzsche, was tentatively endorsed by him and is of contemporary relevance. Whilst I think the MIWTP is complementary to and runs parallel to Nietzsche's methodological naturalism (and therefore is not essential to it), in my view it has significant philosophical merit in its own right.

A Case for Intelligent Design?

In this post I aim to have a go at the heresy of presenting a case for the plausibility of intelligent design as a factor in biological evolution (although ID of an atypical, non-supernatural sort).

In the first part I'll put forward a philosophical argument for the plausibility of ID, building on arguments made in previous posts. Then I'll address some concerns regarding parsimony constraints in explanation. Finally, I'll address how this all relates to science.

The plausibility of ID

The argument goes as follows:

1. Subjective experience exists.

- I take this as self evident.

2. Panexperientialism is a plausible explanation of the relation between experience and the physical world.

- For general arguments regarding panexperientialism ( which I use synonymously with the term 'panpsychism') refer to external links page. Some biologists who have been sympathetic to a panexperientialist position include Sewall Wright and Bernhard Rensch- papers here and here.

3. A plausible form of panexperientialism is that which posits a universal, cosmic subject.

- Refer to posts here, here and here).

4. It is plausible that the universe is 'finely tuned' for life as a consequence of the drive towards differentiation of an anticipative cosmic subject.

- Refer here

5. Given 4, it is also plausible that the drive towards differentiation of an anticipative cosmic subject could be a factor in biological evolution.

I think that if one accepts the first four premises, then the conclusion (5) is fairly uncontentious - if the universe can fine tune itself for life, then it is reasonable to conclude that it could also direct it's further biological evolution. Thus, to argue against the plausibility of ID as presented here it would be necessary to attack those premises.

Parsimony

In my previous post on the fine tuning problem I noted that putative explanations should be both plausible and parsimonious. To this end, I argued that the the inner workings of the postulated cosmic subject should be correlated with the observed physical world as far as possible, and that one could parsimoniously attribute to it an instinctual and anticipative drive towards differentiation. Parsimony and plausibility constraints also apply in relation also apply in relation to arguments for ID. Thus, inferences regarding the cosmic subject's effect on evolution should impute it with as little intelligence or complexity as possible.

I also noted in that post that the major disadvantage which I see in positing a cosmic subject which can anticipate the future is that the physical correlates of the anticipative propensities of the cosmic subject are not observable (or at least have not been observed to date), which goes against the parsimony constraint.

To address this issue further, although the lack of physical anticipatory correlates lessens the appeal of positing an anticipative cosmic subject, I do not think it is fatal to it. A naturalistic explanation can posit unobservables without being fundamentally flawed. For instance, the multiple universes postulated by quantum physicists, string theorists and so forth are inferences which are not directly observable. Also, something may be unobservable in practice but not in principle always unobservable. For instance, perhaps the anticipatory workings of the cosmic subject could be correlated with fluctuations in the vacuum energy of empty space. In this case (and continuing the analogy from the prior post), just as the neural correlates of a jumping dog's anticipative functions are not obviously observable to an undeveloped science, so too the passive workings of the cosmic subject's anticipative functions may not be readily observable, with only its active actions being so.

If one accepts the first four premises above, then in comparing alternate possible evolutionary explanations the lack of parsimony of the anticipative functions of a cosmic subject could perhaps be weighed against the purported implausibility of evolution having occurred solely through random variation and natural selection. One could argue at length from a philosophical perspective as to which explanation is more plausible or parsimonious. More progress if of course likely to be made by actual testing competing hypotheses.

Scientific implications

So how specifically might an anticipative evolutionary drive toward differentiation work and how could it be tested?

Two possible mechanisms are saltation or adaptive mutation. In relation to saltation, the cosmic subject might anticipate that certain major changes in genetic structure could result in the synthesis of proteins which enable the formation of more differentiated organismic forms. Natural selection would then do the work of selecting those forms which are suited to the environment into which they emerge. In relation to adaptive mutation, perhaps the cosmic subject anticipates that certain mutations could lead to new structures that will overcome environmental obstacles an organism faces and thus enhance its potential for differentiation. The latter hypothesis is probably less parsimonious than saltation because it requires attunement of genetic changes to environmental influences. But on the other hand, it is probably more amenable to actual testing (it is difficult to see how one could test for 'hopeful monsters').

To show that adaptive mutation was a result of an anticipative evolutionary drive it would be first necessary to eliminate other possible causes. These could be Darwinian (such as selection acting on a generalised increase in mutation rate in response to environmental stress), or some as yet undiscovered Lamarkian mechanism that provides relevant phenotype to genome feedback.

If such physical explanations had been eliminated then perhaps it could be said there was some support for the anticipative drive hypothesis. The next question would then be what is the actual mechanism by which the anticipative drive effects evolutionary change. That is, how are mutations 'directed' without violating natural law. I think there are two options here. Firstly, the directed mutations could be effected through exploiting indeterminacy at the quantum level. Secondly, one could take a different metaphysical view of the character of physical law, adopting the perspective of Alfred North Whitehead that laws are the 'habits' of nature which on rare occasions may be broken (such a view is also more in keeping with the organic nature of a cosmic subject).

It could be objected here that explaining directed mutation on the basis of quantum events or temporary alterations in nature's habits does not suffice as an explanation at all, because it does not explain the actual mechanism of how the cosmic drive 'causes' the copying errors that lead to the required mutations in nucleotide sequences . But bearing in mind that under the model proposed here the observed physical world is the external aspect of a cosmos with an intrinsic inner subjective dynamic, it may be the case that to ask this question is like asking why fundamental laws and properties are the way they are, and that no further physical explanation can be given.

So it seem to me the scientific investigation of ID as described here would work on a fundamentally negative heuristic - other possibilities are eliminated and we are left with nonrandom directed mutation without a more fundamental physical cause which can be pointed to. In this regard, explanation of direct mechanisms of biological changes, evolution and development are always going to yield a more productive science than that which operates on a negative heuristic of eliminating other possible causes.

Nevertheless, although ID may never be a productive research program in terms of helping us to learn more specifically about how the natural world works this is not to say it may not, after all other physical explanations have been exhausted, be shown to be the best explanation of some evolutionary changes. Of course, even then some might say that deferring to an as yet undiscovered explanation by normal physical means is preferable to postulating an ID mechanism which includes unobservable features. Here we are in the borderlands where philosophy of science meets metaphysics, the issue being whether methodological naturalism needs to be modified to incorporate inferences derived from the natural phenomena of subjective experience.

Conclusion

In light of the above, I think that under a panexperientialist framework some form of minimalist ID could be part of a plausible and parsimonious possible explanation of evolution. Whether such an explanation could ever fall within the realm of science is more problematic. Ultimately, accommodating ID within a scientific framework may require an enlarged conception of what science is (just as David Chalmers has proposed may be necessary for a theory of consciousness ).

In relation to whether such an enlarged conception of science is necessary at the present time, I think the answer is no. There is still so much to learn about life in conventional fields such as molecular biology, genetics and evolutionary developmental biology that it would seem premature to resort to hypotheses concerning a cosmic evolutionary drive. So perhaps the most can be said at the moment is that a panexperientialist form of ID is a plausible hypothetical possibility which is not yet ripe for testing, and may never be.

The Goldilocks Enigma

Paul Davies recent book "The Goldilocks Enigma" is a fascinating exploration of why the universe seems to be "just right" for life. Interest in the fine tuning issue (which is related to the anthropic principle) has received something of a revival in recent years, primarily because of the attention paid by some physicists to the view that our universe has an improbably appropriate amount of dark energy to allow galaxies to form and hence life to evolve. In this post, I aim to evaluate possible solutions to the fine tuning problem from a panexperientialist perspective.

It should be noted that some physicists argue that the universe is as not as fine tuned for life as others would suggest, most prominent among them being Victor Stenger (papers on the subject here). This is not an area where I am qualified to judge, but Davies' comment in his book that the odds of the amount of dark energy in the universe canceling out by chance to an amount that is appropriate for life being 10 to the power of 120 to one helped convinced me that the issue is one that demands consideration.

Some critics also eschew proposed solutions to the fine tuning issue on the basis that the proposed solutions cannot be tested and hence are not scientific. Whilst I think this criticism can have relevance in relation to unscientific claims which claim to be otherwise (for example, it seems to me that aspects of string theory may be more appropriately termed mathematicised philosophy rather than science), I don't believe falsifiable, scientific explanations are the only sort of explanations that are valuable or rational. Although generally a falsifiable model is preferable to one that is not, sometimes the most that can be hoped for is inference to the best explanation.

In assessing putative inferences to the best explanation, I think two key criteria to address are those of plausibility and parsimony - explanations should be credible and no more complicated than necessary. These criteria will be used as the basis for assessing the various possible solutions to the fine tuning problem in the remainder of this post. I will also be assuming in this post that the existence of an overarching universal subject (which I have previously discussed in posts here, here and here) is a plausible form of panexperientialism.

Another preliminary point to be made is that some critics of fine tuning arguments state that as we do not know that life occurs anywhere else in the universe other than Earth, the universe may not in fact be 'just right' for life. Davies makes the point that the fine tuning argument still applies in relation to the fact that the universe permits life in at least one place in the universe. For this to occur the universe must have laws which allow stable complex structures to form, must contain the sorts of substances that life requires and must provide a setting so that substances can come together in the appropriate way. Thus , the fine tuning argument still applies even if life only occurs on Earth. A related point here is that the fine tuning argument is separate from claims regarding the evolution of life- the universe being fine tuned for life to have formed initially is entirely compatible with the subsequent evolution of life occurring through random variation and natural selection.

In his book Davies discusses various proposed solutions to the fine tuning problem - coincidence, multiverses, intelligent design by God and variations of these - and finds all of them wanting. I won't reiterate his arguments here other than to say that I agree that these explanations do not seem to rate very well on the criteria of parsimony or plausibility.

I do think the multiverse concept may have some advantages over other options if it turns out to be indirectly testable and hence scientific. Davies says that this may be the case if the multiverse theory makes the prediction that galaxy formation should be frustrated by a value of dark energy such that the universe is marginally biofriendly rather than optimally biofriendly - which would seem too 'flukey'. But one wonders that if the result did come out as too flukey that multiverse proponents might then just fall back on the argument that we just happen to be living in a universe that is even more flukey than originally supposed.

Davies also elaborates on and expresses a preference for another intriguing possible solution to the fine tuning argument derived from the work of Johnathon Wheeler. Very briefly, Davies proposes that the universe may contain a 'life principle' that constrains the universe to evolve towards life and mind. This , of course, invokes a teleological aspect to cosmic evolution. Davies introduces this teleological element without abandoning naturalistic explanation by invoking quantum theory and backwards in time causation. By extending the delayed choice experiment from the scale of photons to the scale of the universe, Davies proposes that if the entire universe could evolve until it is permeated by mind and life, then it could engineer its own creation and evolution through backwards in time calibration of its initial conditions. This has the added bonus of forming a self-explanatory loop explaining the issue of why the universe exists at all!

I must admit that this solution initially struck me as kooky as panexperientialism no doubt seems to be to many physicalists. But, on reflection, I find it an ingenious attempt to naturalisitically explain fine tuning. The main problem I would have with it is in the likelihood that non-preexisting mind could evolve to saturate the whole universe (including, presumably, the interior of stars and the vastness of empty space), which I gather is a requirement for backward causation to work on a cosmic scale. In my view, it is more plausible that mind was their to start with. Hence, I'll now propose how a panexperientialist might explain the fine tuning problem.

In constructing a panexperientialist solution to the fine tuning problem, parsimony and plausibility constraints are paramount. It would not be hard to solve the problem by imputing a cosmic subject with all the powers of a super-intelligent and omnipotent God. However, the requirement of parsimony entails that the cosmic subject should be no more complicated than necessary.

To this end, I think that the starting point for the simplicity of the cosmic subject is that the inner workings of the subject are correlated with the observed physical world. Thus, as far as possible the internal subjectivity of the cosmic subject should manifest itself to an observer as the operation of physical laws, and postulating cosmic experiences which do not have observeable physical correlates should be avoided wherever possible.

Another related application of the simplicity criterion to the cosmic subject is that the subjective dynamics of the cosmos should be correlated with its outward evolution. On this point, what can be observed from the initial conditions of the big bang to the formation of galaxies, stars and planets which permit the evolution of life is a progressive differentiation. Thus, I think the cosmic subject can be parsimoniously attributed with a drive or urge towards self differentiation (incidentally, Freya Mathews explores the idea that the cosmos realises itself through self-differentiation from a psychological perspective in her book For Love of Matter).

Whilst positing a cosmic subject with an urge towards self differentiation may get some way toward solving the fine tuning problem, it is not enough. The parameters that allowed the universe to evolve into a biofriendly state were laid down in the early stages of the big bang or shortly thereafter, whereas the conditions of the universe that allowed life to evolve (for example the differentiation from a featureless primordial gas into galaxies and stars) occurred millions or billions of years after these initial conditions were determined. Thus, even allowing for a cosmic urge towards self differentiation , how would the universe 'know' to set the parameters such that differentiation would occur far off into the future?

I can envisage two possible solutions to this dilemma. The first is the universe must be imputed with a degree of foresight such that it was aware that the setting of the parameters at the initial stages of it's evolution would allow it to differentiate further in the future. In accordance with the simplicity criterion, this ability of foresight should not be made any more complex than need be. Hence, I do not think it would necessary to ascribe any intellectual, calculative or linguistic elements to it. Rather it could be likened to instinctual anticipation on a cosmic scale. An analogy could be perhaps made with a dog knowing how high to jump to catch a ball, without knowing any of the physics involved in assessing the trajectory of the ball and the muscular forces required for the jump; and the universe knowing how to differentiate itself in it's early phases such that it's potential for further differentiation would b enhanced. Of course, the time scales between a dog catching a ball and billions of years of cosmic evolution is great, but if a subject exists on a cosmic scale then it is reasonable to assume its experience of time would be vastly different from organisms on our scale.

The other solution to the dilemma is to embrace a modified backward causation model in which the universe evolves itself through backward causation. The difference (from the previously discussed backward causation model) being that the universe already possesses an experiential character at the time of its inception, with the direction of its evolution being engineered by a more explicitly intelligent and evolved subjectivity from the future.

In terms of weighing up these two alternatives to the foresight issue, I will just say a couple of things for now. The major disadvantage which I see in positing a cosmic subject which can anticipate the future is that there are no obvious physical correlates of this anticipation. The physical correlates of a dog anticipating catching a ball could be located in the firing of its neurons, but where would the equivalent physical correlate be for the anticipative propensities of the cosmic subject? It would appear that characteristics which permit this foresight are not physically observable (or at least have not been observed to date), which goes against the parsimony constraint previously discussed .

Another factor counting against the anticipative model is that it lacks the self explanatory loop explaining the existence of the universe, which is a purported feature of the backward causation model.

However, considering parsimony from another aspect, if one is already prepared to admit the existence of a cosmic subject at the beginning of the universe on other grounds, then it is not that much more to allow this subject to possess powers of foresight. Overall, I prefer the anticipative model to the backward causation model, but this is probably just an intuitive preference more than anything else.

By way of conclusion, I think it is reasonable to say that if one accepts a panexperientialist explanation of consciousness, then a plausible and parsimonious explanation for the universe being finely tuned for life may be that this is a consequence of the drive towards differentiation of an anticipative cosmic subject. The major challenge for this model lies in explaining how the cosmic subject anticipates the future and what the physical correlates of such anticipation might be.

Conversely, I also thinks that the fine tuning problem itself adds weight to versions of panexperientialism which posit the existence of a cosmic subject.

Forthcoming Book

I noticed on this blog that David Skrbina, author of the highly regarded "Panpsychism in the West", is editing a new book on panpsychism due out in 2008 or 2009.

The contributions in "Mind that Abides" aim to move "beyond a basic defense of panpsychism, and toward new positive theories as they relate to mind, consciousness, and reality."

Contibutors include Skrbina himself, Galen Strawson, Riccardo Manzotti, Stephen Deiss, Carey Carlson (Steve Esser reviews one of Carlson's books here), Stuart Hameroff and Freya Mathews (whose work was discussed in the post below).

One to look out for!