Beyond Bohm 2025, Part 2 – On Panpsychism

On Panpsychism

with Santtu Heikkinen

Sunday August 10
9:00am PDT  | 12:00pm EDT  | 5:00pm BST  |  6:00pm CEST 
2-hour session.

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Panpsychism has emerged as a compelling perspective in contemporary philosophy of mind, asserting that consciousness is not confined to humans and animals but is a fundamental feature of the physical world. The primary motivations for panpsychism include the continuity argument, which seeks to address the apparent gap between mindless matter and conscious experience, the argument from intrinsic natures, which posits that consciousness is an intrinsic property of all entities, and the conceivability argument, which explores the possibility that consciousness could be a universal property in a way that is both metaphysically coherent and scientifically plausible.

As the theory evolves, various strains of panpsychism have emerged, notably smallist panpsychism, which proposes that even the most fundamental entities possess rudimentary forms of consciousness, and cosmopsychism, which suggests that the universe itself might be the locus of consciousness. These variants offer differing solutions to the central issue in panpsychism: the combination problem, which questions how simple, fundamental consciousnesses combine to form the complex and integrated experiences found in higher beings. We will also explore how different formulations of panpsychism include references to different interpretations of quantum mechanics.

In response to panpsychism’s challenges, alternatives such as idealism and neutral monism offer distinct metaphysical frameworks. Idealism suggests that the universe is fundamentally mental, and that consciousness is the primary constituent of reality, whereas neutral monism seeks a middle ground, proposing that both mind and matter are aspects of a single, more fundamental substance. Both offer solutions to the problems that panpsychism struggles with, although they come with their own set of philosophical challenges.

This talk explores these key aspects of panpsychism, providing a critical overview of its motivations, varieties, and the philosophical debates surrounding it, while also examining the ways in which alternative theories attempt to address the same core issues.

Santtu Heikkinen is a junior researcher in philosophy at the University of Helsinki. His academic work has focused around alternatives to materialist metaphysics, such as panpsychism and idealism. He has written a concise book on panpsychism and its core problems, entitled “Panpsychism and the Combination Problem”.

In addition to his academic work, Santtu has a decade of contemplative practice and has taught especially Buddhist practices and theory since 2020.