A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory – of – Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
Post 157.July 20, 2026
PANPSYCHISM
Consciousness is Universal?
Panpsychism, the notion that consciousness is a funda-mental property of matter, has become a fairly popular view among scientists¹ who seriously investigate the mysterious “emergence” of Mind in a Material world. It seems more scientific than Pantheism, because it makes no reference to thinking deities. But, it leaves the ultimate source, and evolutionary path, of Meaningful Information open to question.
For the pragmatic purposes of modern physics, the mindless metaphysical belief system of Materialism served adequately, until the 20th century. But for the 21st century, with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, my personal philosophical worldview had to go beyond the superficial sensations of matter. It is peripherally related to Panpsychism, yet based on something more essential than human consciousness, which “emerged” only after 14B years of cosmic rearrangements of atomic or subatomic particles.
This is my amateur assessment, drawn mostly from a layman’s understanding of Quantum Science and Information Theory, and also from non-professional argumentation on the Philosophy Forum. Instead of atoms of awareness, the essential element of the Cosmos seems to be Causation² : (e.g. Energy, the power to transform). It’s what changed a “heap” of particles into an ongoing organized Process (e.g. solar system), then a living Organism (animation), and eventually a thinking Being (philosophers). But this kind of Energy is not the 19th century notion of a flowing substance. Instead, it’s more of a mutual relationship like Gravity.
As an alternative to Materialism (dumb particles), and Panpsychism (smart particles), Enformationism is based on the Process of Transformation that began with a Bang of Cosmic Causal Energy. But, instead of fizzling-out like 4th of July fireworks, it gradually transformed from Particle Soup to gravitational Galaxies, to planetary Systems, to postulating Philosophers, as-if directed toward some future state of organization, and as-if following a Program of Information like a computer. Remember, Form refers to non-random meaningful Patterns & Structures. And Trans-Form-ation means a progressive Change of Form, as occurs in physical & biological evolution : a gradual Program of change and development.
I began by extending Shannon’s engineering definition of Information to a more fundamental physical understanding of the general Power-to-Transform, that we know in physics as Energy. Today, Information as Ideas, and Information as Data, are now equated with general Causation as Energy³. After that initial insight, I came across A.N. Whitehead’s Process Theory⁴. {See note below} And the result is, “experimental philosophy” (X-phi), for which I coined the term EnFormAction. and labeled the theory as Enformationism.
1. Christof Koch: A prominent neuroscientist and Chief Scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. He has advocated for panpsychist views linked to Integrated Information Theory (IIT), suggesting that any complex, integrated system possesses some level of consciousness. . . . Stuart Hameroff: An anesthesiologist and director of the Center for Conscious-ness Studies at the University of Arizona. While his specific theory, Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), focuses on quantum processes in brain microtubules, it shares panpsychism’s premise that consciousness is woven into the foundational fabric of the universe. https://www.google.com/search?panpsychism 2. Causation : The principle that every effect is linked to a prior cause—acts as the fundamental architecture of the Universe. It establishes the arrow of time, bounds the maximum speed of information within spacetime via the speed of light, and transforms a chaotic jumble of events into an ordered, comprehensible reality. https://www.google.com/search?Causation-imprint on universe
3. Energy and informationare deeply linked, though in mainstream physics, they remain distinct. Energy is the capacity to do work, while information describes the arrangement and order of matter/energy. https://www.google.com/search?Energy+is+a+form+of+information.
4. In the context of Process Philosophy, panpsychism — often specifically called panexperientialism—posits that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are not inert matter, but momentary “drops of experience”. Rather than consciousness emerging mysteriously from dead matter, matter is viewed as the external, observable aspect of these basic units of experience.
Pioneered by mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, process philosophy abandons the idea of static “substances” (like hard, dead atoms). Instead, it understands the world as an ongoing process of becoming. https://www.google.com/searchprocess+philosophy+panpsychism
Panpsychism Mind is Everywhere
“Contrary to received wisdom... programmable computers will not have consciousness. Even a perfect software model of the brain is not conscious. Its simulation is fake consciousness. Consciousness is not a special type of computation—it is not a clever hack. Consciousness is about being.” ___Christof Koch___
Post 157 continued on next page, click Next
Information is universal, but consciousness is local. Form is essential, but Awareness is emergent.
To update ANW’s“occasions of experience”, I would call the atoms of progress : “events” of en-form-ation. So, the subjective experience came later in the evolutionary process, when animated matter began to become conscious, not just of quantitative matter, but of qualitative meaning (qualia).
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