catastrophe

This pretty much blew my mind as it meticulously elaborated on panpsychism in a theory called 

integrated information theory. Seriously, read this. Let me preface this summary with some definitions. 

‘Qualia’ - raw feels, how it feels to experience something. 

‘Monad’ - A unit of consciousness at its most basic level. ie; a brain, an atom, a galaxy. It cannot be 

divided to into similar, smaller pieces that function identically.

‘Aggregate’ - A collection of monads. ie; a rock.

‘Crystal’ - the dimension in which a consciousness is theorized to exist. 

It postulates that: Consciousness is made up of a material phenomena and a conscious phenomena, 

neither of which can be reduced to the other, although they are closely related. Conscious phenomena 

occurs when a single monad is comprised of many integrated systems. The larger the repetoire of 

integrated systems the more conscious something is. Each system of systems which holds some degree 

of complexity “experiences” in a proposed seperate dimension called the ‘crystal,’ which came into 

existence with the other dimensions in the big bang. Some humans (and even possibly apes and 

dolphins)have acheived a level of self awareness(I say some in respect to mental disability, comas, etc.), 

whereas the consciousness in all other known systems (trees, atoms, galaxies, bacteria, computer 

programs, the internet, the universe) is a sort of unconscious consciousness. These monads have 

crystals and experience qualia. 

It is theorized that the universe feels, or rather experiences. When you squish a bug it feels like 

something to the bug. It may not feel good or bad to it(since bugs are not self aware and have no 

concept of their mortality). It may not even feel like something humans are capable of experiencing but 

perhaps some other kind of sense entirely, but nonetheless it feels. This solidifies more specifically, the 

philisophical belief that we are the universe experiencing itself introspectively. We are the eyes and ears 

of the universe. We are to the universe as cells are to our body, and as atoms are to cells. Perhaps we 

are all connected subconsciously/on a higher ‘crystal’ level(or rather humanity’s collective existence 

constitutes another being entirely.

Instead of our consciousness being a random coincidence in spacetime, it is actually a phenomenon 

shared by all systems of matter. We are special in the fact that we are self aware and experience 

complex emotions, but perhaps self awareness has no telos or special meaning other than it being the 

next step in the evolution of consciousness; the result of the most complex and concurrently concise system.

via astronautte