Rupert Sheldrake’s argument that the Sun is conscious cannot be dismissed out of hand by those who insist that computers can become conscious:
Recently, biologist Rupert Sheldrake asked at the Journal of Consciousness Studies, “Is the Sun conscious?” It’s the sort of question that people might have asked before the dawn of modern science (and the usual answer was yes).
Sheldrake is pretty controversial but he is likely right to note a “recent panpsychist turn in philosophy.” Prominent philosopher David Chalmers, who coined the term the “Hard Problem of consciousness,” has also said “We’re not going to reduce consciousness to something physical … it’s a primitive component of the universe.”
But Sheldrake might have added that there is a panpsychist turn in science as well. After all, a mainstream neuroscientist recently argued in a science publication last year that even viruses are intelligent And he’s hardly the only prominent panpsychist in science. Even New Scientist, long a bastion of materialism (naturalism), offers a sympathetic account of panpsychism.
But at what point do we distinguish between panpsychism and animism the ancient belief that everything has a spirit (which must, in many cases, be placated)?
News, “Panpsychism: If computers can have minds, why can’t the Sun?” at Mind Matters News (August 1)
Takehome: If the Hard AI people are right, animism — the belief that inanimate objects (whether the Sun or a computer) can have minds — has been unjustly dismissed.
You may also wish to read: Why panpsychism is starting to push out naturalism. A key goal of naturalism/materialism has been to explain human consciousness away as “nothing but a pack of neurons.” That can’t work. Panpsychism is not dualism. By including consciousness — including human consciousness — as a bedrock fact of nature, it avoids naturalism’s dead end.