Panprotopsychism
Panprotopsychism is distinguished from panpsychism in that the most basic protophenomenal properties are not themselves forms of consciousness but rather must combine to generate forms of consciousness.
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Philip Goff
Professor of Philosophy
Philip Goff is a British philosopher and author, specializing in consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A professor at Durham University, he critiques materialism and dualism, advocating for panpsychism through Russellian monism. He argues that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the physical world.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Basic protophenomenal properties aren’t conscious but combine to produce consciousness.
How It Works
Emergence occurs when unexperienced qualities transform into experienced ones.
Key Challenge
Explaining how non-conscious qualities become conscious experience (“phenomenal magic”).
Panprotopsychism
Panprotopsychism is distinguished from panpsychism in that the most basic protophenomenal properties are not themselves forms of consciousness but rather must combine to generate forms of consciousness. Panprotopsychism would then be a kind of “emergent panpsychism,” with the “phenomenal magic” requiring actions at two levels. Such emergence could be weak or strong, depending on whether one could in principle explain with perfection, solely from all the relevant facts about protophenomenal properties, all the relevant facts about phenomenal properties as manifest in conscious creatures (Goff et al., 2022).
“Panqualityism” is the view that protophenomenal properties are thin, unexperienced qualities, whereas our conscious experience is thick with experienced qualities. Their challenge is to explain how such unexperienced qualities come to be experienced (Goff et al., 2022).
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