Although evolution is a very important concept in contemporary biology, it does not
help to answer the question to the origin of the human consciousness. If all
reductionist theories are ruled out because it tries to reduce consciousness to an
objective aspect of the natural world and ignore the storytellers’ (consciousness)
subjective side, panpsychism seems to be a favourable candidate for an alternative
theory. The so called Copenhagen-interpretation furthermore brought an end to
determinism and classical objectivity and pointed out that our reality is partly created
by the observer. The work of Alfred North Whitehead establish the basis on which
Christian de Quincey build his theory and attempt to build a bridge between the
objective physical and the subjective psyche. Panpsychism provide a post-modern
solution to the problem of identifying the origin of consciousness by presenting a
relationship between psyche and physis as two temporal ordained poles of the same
experiencing individual entity. The interaction between psyche and matter become a
relationship between events or “moments of experience” where, through the natural
process of the flow of time, subjects (psyches) become objects (physical matter).
Time, as the lost link in the recurring body/mind problem is the radical solution for the
explanation gap between physical systems and conscious systems. The reductionist
solution demand an ontological leap (the emergence of an entity with an interior,
subjective viewpoint from completely objective entities); and this is not the case with
panpsychism (where primordial experience are already subjective and the
emergence of consciousness or conscious experience are not an ontological
objective to subjective leap). Mind and body is separated on a numerical level but
not on an ontological level. Mind and body is of the same sort, type or reality – the
inevitable creation and decline of experience. Psyche is therefore the unifying
process of all the total hierarchy of events. Panpsychism however has many
deficiencies and these deficiencies are also critically analysed. / MPhil, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15885 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Van Zyl, Louis Egbertus |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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