John Pickering

Recent developments in both evolutionary theory and in our ideas about development suggest that genetic assimilation of environmental regularities may occur on shorter timescales than those considered by Shepard. The nervous system is more plastic and for longer periods than previously thought. Hence, the internal basis of cognitive-perceptual skills is likely to blend ontogenetic and phylogenetic learning. This blend is made more rich and interactive by the special cultural scaffolding that surrounds human development. This being so, the regularities of the environment which have been genetically assimilated during the emergence of modern human beings may themselves be the products of human action. [Shepard].

The return of interest in panpsychism reflects a shift towards process metaphysics. To propose that qualia are present throughout nature is a radical break with the mechanistic worldview inherited from the nineteenth century. That break is much needed as it is becoming clear that the values implicit in that worldview have helped create a serious ecological crisis. Here, following Bohm and Peirce, an elaboration of process metaphysics is proposed based on a semiotic view of causation. This in turn, taken together with insights from biosemiotics, is used to propose a worldview of unbroken wholeness in which consciousness is ubiquitous and exists at scales well beyond the range of human experience. It is suggested that this will help to recover some of the ecological sensitivies found in prescientific traditions, which are lost in a purely mechanistic worldview.

Open peer commentary on the article “Consciousness as Self-Description in Differences” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: The first part of Gasparyan’s article usefully shows how problems must arise if consciousness is approached as if it were a phenomenon separate from the observer. The second part suggests a change of approach from first- to second-order cybernetics will solve these problems. While this, too, is helpful, it is, in essence, an epistemological device that requires something else in order to engage with the fundamental aspect of consciousness, namely, qualia. This is an ontological shift towards panpsychicism, as found in Whitehead, Peirce and Eastern traditions.