Physicist Vitaly Vanchurin explains:
Physics is stagnating. We haven’t had any significant, new theoretical breakthroughs in decades. Do we need a radically new way of understanding the universe? If we treat the world as a neural network which is in the process of learning, then we can better understand quantum gravity, quantum computing and consciousness, writes Vitaly Vanchurin.
Vitaly Vanchurin, “The universe is learning” at iai News (paywall)
Note: This came up last year: The whole universe is a neural network (September 11, 2020). And it is learning?
The main thing to see is that panpsychism is slowly replacing naturalism as the default position of science.
It makes sense. Naturalism requires us to believe that our minds are an illusion. But, as neurosurgeon Michael Egnor says, if your hypothesis is that the mind is an illusion, then you don’t have a hypothesis.
Panpsychists are almost certainly wrong in believing that electrons are conscious or that the whole universe is. But they do start with the idea that something, somewhere is thinking — perhaps even them and us.
Odd as it sounds, that might be an improvement: Wrong but sane
See also: Why is science growing comfortable with panpsychism (“everything is conscious”)? At one time, the idea that “everything is conscious” was the stuff of jokes. Not any more, it seems.
and
From Scientific American: “we may all be alters—dissociated personalities— of universal consciousness.”