Panpsychism and ensemble explanations

Han Li; Bradford Saad

doi:10.1007/s11098-022-01851-0

Panpsychism and ensemble explanations

Han Li, Bradford Saad

OFR - Theoretical Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Panpsychism claims that the vast majority of conscious subjects in our world are inanimate and physical. Ensemble explanations account for striking phenomena by placing them within an ensemble of outcomes, most of which are not striking. This paper develops an explanatory problem for panpsychism: panpsychism renders two appealing ensemble explanations unsatisfactory. Specifically, we argue that panpsychism renders unsatisfactory the multiverse explanation of why a universe supports life and the many-planets explanation of why a planet supports life.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3583–3597
Number of pages	15
Journal	Philosophical Studies
Volume	179
Issue number	12
Early online date	22 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01851-0
Publication status	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The Funding was provided by John Templeton Foundation (Grant Number 61516), Universiteit Utrecht, Sentience Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Brown University, European Research Council (Grant Number 726251).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Keywords

Anthropic principles
Consciousness
Fine-tuning
Multiverse
Observation selection effect
Origins of life
Panpsychism

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10.1007/s11098-022-01851-0

s11098-022-01851-0Final published version, 222 KBLicence: Taverne

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Panpsychism and ensemble explanations

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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