Science writer John Horgan provides an entertaining account of a panel discussion he moderated last month, “Awakening to Truth: Consciousness as the Fundamental Reality.” It was part of a three-day conference in Hoboken, New Jersey, called Conscious Collaboration for Global Transformation.

It is easy to understand the anxiety he portrays. Human consciousness is a nearly impossible subject to comprehend or explain. It is, inevitably, a popular stumbling block and some veteran stumblers like Stuart Hameroff, and cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman were present:

Horgan told the audience:

I just want to point out, in case you missed it, that I asked if theories of consciousness are scientific in the sense that they can be tested and potentially verified, and the panelists’ answer is NO.

Panelists’ hands fly up again, but I say:

Sorry, we don’t have time to dwell on that, I need to raise one more point before we’re done. We humans are all narcissists, we think we’re at the center of things. Religion reflects our narcissism, all religions say the universe is just a stage for our spiritual unfolding. Science counters our narcissism, it puts us in our place, and I worry that your theories take us back to that old narcissistic outlook by making consciousness, a human attribute, the most fundamental property of reality.

“The Consciousness Panel,” September 16, 2024

But Horgan raises more questions than he answers here

Human consciousness is unique, despite the remarkable number of attempts to pretend otherwise. Thus, there is no reason why the largely inanimate universe might not be a stage for our spiritual unfolding. It is hardly narcissistic to think so.

Certainly, the universe is fine-tuned for life. Whether it might also be fine-tuned for intelligent life is worth exploring.

Panpsychism

Making consciousness the most fundamental property of reality is one strand of panpsychism (everything is conscious to some degree). Panpsychists do not try to explain away human consciousness as an illusion nor claim that it is something chimpanzees have too, if only we look hard enough. They see it as the most highly developed known state of consciousness.

Panpsychism has an advantage over these other perspectives. The claim that consciousness is an illusion does not make sense and rules out science. The claim that chimpanzees think like people is easily falsified. By contrast, the claim that consciousness is the most fundamental property of reality may be incorrect but it does make sense and is not easily falsified.

Many of us think it makes more sense to assume that the universe is the product of a divine mind than that it is itself conscious. Increasingly, those are the two serious options and narcissism has nothing to do with it.