WHAT MATTER FEELS: Consciousness, Energy and Physics

I anticipated being enthusiastic about this book, given that (like me) it promotes a form of pan-experientialism. On closer inspection, however, this enthusiasm has been eroded by a number of major objections to the unfolding of the argument. The first concerns the author’s conceptualisation of the relationship between ‘Experience’ (Pepperell consistently capitalises Experience to avoid the conventional baggage associated with the word) and ‘matter’. I don’t agree with his insistence that matter is the substratum for Experience. Early on, Pepperell quotes Sir Charles Sherrington; “What we are looking for is an energy which is mind.” [p. 5] But for the rest of the book, the notion that energy encompasses Experience (or more accurately sentience), which is my own belief, seems to evaporate. Why this insistence on ‘matter’, when we know that matter is simply condensed energy?

Is it perhaps because of (objection number two) an over-reliance on classical rather than quantum physics? My ideas about energy as the ‘raw material’ for consciousness are very much couched in the universality of quantum physics, whereas Pepperell seems to have bought into the delusion, promoted by Dennett and others, that the quantum domain can and should be limited to the sub-atomic world. Of course, I’m by no means alone in linking quantum theory with consciousness; famously, Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff do so, as does, for example, Robert Kane, and more recently, Federico Faggin.

Worse than this classical bias, is Pepperell’s portrayal of Experience as the ‘shadow’ or ‘mirror’ of classical physical terms: there’s a double-page table (p.80-81) in which Pepperell equates ‘psychological’ and ‘Parallel physical quantities.’ For example, ‘Repose’ is equivalent to ‘Static or dynamic equilibrium.’ ‘Distress’ is equal to ‘Direction of energy change, if positive.’ ‘Relief’ is ‘Direction of energy change, if negative.’ Pepperell repeats in several places that, rather than a polemic, this book is intended to be a manual for the empirical testing of his theories of pan-Experientialism. Given, however, Pepperell’s exact transposition of physical terms with Experiential terms, these ‘experiments’ would amount to nothing more than an exercise in renaming the components and forces involved in the targeted system.

In addition, Pepperell’s ‘mirroring’ strategy is not going to lead us out of the cul-de-sac of physicalism: changing the names is not going to solve the Hard Problem! Worse still, sticking rigidly to the limits of physicalism entails the price of determinism. And, appropriately, Pepperell’s descriptions of the ‘Experiences’ of physical systems, like a spring, are eerily reminiscent of Behaviourism’s passive ‘empty organism.’ He says that the spring’s preferred state is one of ‘repose’. Any input of energy (i.e. Experience?) causes ‘conflict’ and/or ‘distress’ and the removal of force results in ‘relief’. Where are the spontaneous, inner, causal initiatives of consciousness? In other words, where is free will?

As above, Pepperell’s strategy does not (as far as I can see) advance the explanation of mind and consciousness beyond conventional physicalism. My argument here is that it’s not enough to posit ‘shadow’ passive ‘Experience’, which will somehow lead to consciousness and free will. Rather, in a viable theory of pan-experientialism, consciousness and free will have to be accepted as ubiquitous in reality all the way down. As Federico Faggin says in his 2024 book: “Once we accept that consciousness and free will exist as fundamental properties of nature, our worldview changes irreversibly and enriches us immensely.” [‘Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature’, p. 92]