This book [Panpsychism: The Philosophy of the Sensuous Universe] is a profound, insightful work. The book defends what Ells terms "Idealist Panpsychism," the general idea of which is that there is a level of ontology (actual existence) that exists below that of even a "completed physics," i.e., a physics that perfectly predicts everything in terms of a set of ultimate constituents of the universe - and - assuming an interpretation of physics a la the Copenhagen interpretation where consciousness is yet required playing some role.
Ells supports this firstly with an interesting analysis of levels of existence (experiential, empirical, material, mathematical) with one of the disturbing conclusions being that physicalism "gives no clue as to what the difference between mathematical existence and actual existence is (p. 69)." Ells makes the argument for an absolute requirement for a level of existence that is consciousness or experience. Along the way, I must say that he is able to elucidate for me, for once, what Whitehead was actually about, and even casts a light on the idealist Berkeley that makes his hitherto automatically rejected idealism more respectable and his reasons understandable.
This is not to say the subsequent argument is without its flaws. Some of the flaws are simply of the kind that make the issue interesting. All "matter" in the panpsychic schema is sentient, conscious. Even the electron argues Ells has an elementary sentience, a sentience that supports its ability to feel its environment, to make a "choice" for example at the famous two-slit experiment. The nature of this sentience such that it can make a "choice," whatever "choice" means here is left very vague and a bit problematic. Nevertheless, this subject of "choice" capabilities (which Ells touches to a degree) in very low level sentience, e.g., in amoebas, opens a vast discussion that is highly related to Ells and the actual capabilities of this field of "matter" (see Gunther's
Mind, Memory, Time
for a remarkable discussion).
Ells discussion of quantum mechanics and his demonstration that the bizarre characteristics of quantum mechanics (six by count) fit his idealist panpsychism are interesting. Ells leans a lot on Stapp
Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer (The Frontiers Collection)
, at least for hope for additional explication of the relation of quantum theory to consciousness. Stapp, however, IMO, while also of interest, is rather far from being up to this task. (For those interested, check my Amazon review of Stapp's Mindful Universe).
Then there is the "hard problem," the problem which should be understood as accounting for the image of the external world, e.g., the coffee cup on the kitchen with brown coffee and white cream being stirred by a spoon. Yes, there is qualia here - the browns, the whites, the silver of the spoon - but also the forms - the cup, the stirring spoon. Form, especially when it realized that form is actually dynamic, defined over time, is also qualia and equally non-computable. All this is the (qualitative) image of the external world. Ells develops a little thought model attempting to relate sentience to form, but this is not up to the reality of dynamic form defined over flow fields, i.e., to the realities of what is going on in perception. He is led, when considering larger organisms such as humans, to hypothesize a hierarchy of sentient elements in the brain (from atoms to ever larger sentient structures), somehow, in this totality of conscious elements, resulting in this image of the coffee cup and spoon. He recognizes the difficulty of explaining this as the "combination problem" and hopes it will be solved. This I severely doubt. Ells would have been helped here were there a general recognition in the world of panpsychic philosophers, as opposed to utter neglect, that perhaps the greatest of panpsychic philosophers is Bergson, and Bergson (Matter and Memory, 1896) had a powerful solution to the hard problem. As Bergson had anticipated the essence of holography in 1896, visualizing the universe as holographic (an implication I think can be seen,, though not explicitly, in Ells) his theory of perception was not understood by his contemporaries and is still not grasped over 100 years later (one will need an explication; I can only suggest checking my
Time and Memory: A primer on the scientific mysticism of consciousness
).
In reality, the true core of the problem, as Bergson showed, is our current, operative (in science and philosophy) metaphysic on space and time. He offered a new one in which his model of conscious perception operates. Ells unfortunately neglects to examine this fundamental problem, in actuality assuming the validity of this classic metaphysic, time being completely unmentioned. It would be interesting to see Ells and others come to grips with Bergson, but in any case Ells rips another interesting chunk from the wall of physicalism, a chunk well worth the read.
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Top reviews from other countries
James O'Hare
Solid and accessible introduction to the subject
Reviewed in Canada on February 18, 2018
pecheur
Not the best introduction to the subject
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2013