The Mysterious Mind: A Consideration of Consciousness, Materialism & Panpsychism

The mind is a truly mysterious thing. However, it should remembered that the universe of which minds are a part is also mysterious. These two issues are linked. The result is that a diverse array of positions exist concerning the nature of mind/consciousness, the nature of the universe, and the relationship between the two. Some people believe that the entire universe is conscious - if this is so, then the universe is seemingly more mysterious than the human mind. Contrarily, if only small parts of the universe are conscious then the question arises as to how the non-conscious universe evolved these parts; there is still a mystery to be solved. In this book Tiller outlines his own perspective on these long-standing debates. He considers the views of various philosophers such as David Chalmers, Daniel Dennet, Thomas Nagel, Hans Jonas, Ervin Laszlo, Colin McGinn and Christian de Quincey and blends them together into a new view of the universe in which consciousness (in the philosophical, but not the psychological sense) is a non-emergent and pervasive phenomenon. On this view all parts of the universe have the same level of consciousness.