1. Pan-awareness: Building a bridge between panpsychism and Vedanta
Anand Rangarajan
Dept. of Computer & Information Science and Engineering
Univ. of Florida

2. Overview Phenomenology Pan-awareness ontology Topologies Conclusions
Meditative phenomenology
Pan-awareness ontology
Ontology of subjects
The combination problem
Topologies
Hierarchical frames
Conclusions

3. Meditative Phenomenology
Mindfulness: Awareness completely focused at center of phenomenon.
One pointedness, no split mind.
Non-referential awareness: Awareness zooms out and is radically decentered.
Pure consciousness event (PCE), nirvikalpa samadhi.
Fundamental awareness/content distinction
Hindu and Buddhist philosophical schools: longstanding debate over interpretation.

4. Fundamental nature of awareness/content distinction
Illumination
Visualization
Cognition
Emotion
Perception
Awareness
Content
Sensation
Irritability
Prehension
Fundamental nature of awareness/content distinction
(Aurobindo, 1985, Wilber, 2000)

5. Reductive Explanation
Logical supervenience reductive explanation
Almost everything is logically supervenient on the physical (Chalmers, JCS 2:3, 1995).
Exceptions are:
Experience
Physical laws
Indexicality
Panpsychism, dualism, idealism etc. cannot be summarily dismissed.

6. Why panpsychism?
“It’s logically possible”, - says Prof. Analytic Philosopher with a contemptuous tone
Marginal view but upheld by Leibniz, James, Whitehead, Russell, Hartshorne, Griffin, Fechner
Fundamental approach to consciousness problem
Affinity with Vedanta, Vajrayana, Hua-Yen
Recent resurgence – Seager, Strawson, Rosenberg
Russell championed a neutral monist view which held that there was an intrinsic aspect to the physical in addition. According to Arindam Chakrabarti, this view was held by Russell for a very brief period. It is interesting to note that Chalmers, Lockwood and Rosenberg have recently paid a lot of attention to this view. Rosenberg’s Ph.D. thesis marries Russell’s neutral monism and panpsychism.

7. Ontology
Agree with Strawson (JCS, 6:4, 1999): When awareness present, a subject exists.
When I am aware, I am.
Fundamental level:
Subjects.
Intersubjective exchange of content.
Awareness NOT cognitive.
Reminiscent of pan proto-psychism.

8. Representation Subjects and intersubjective
network modeled as directed
graph
Phenomenology rides on topology. Connection directions indicate
propagation of influence.
Issues of spacetime metric etc. set aside for now.

9. The Combination Problem
How does phenomenology add up?
What about awareness of “mid-level subjects” [James 1890, Seager - JCS 2:3]?
Intersubjective phenomenal content at mid-level?
Quantum coherence etc. suggested as objective criteria.
Ontology of subjects as a way out?
Where the elemental units are supposed to be feelings, the case is in no wise altered. Take a hundred of them, shuffle them and pack them as close together as you can (whatever that might mean); still each remains the same feeling it always was, shut in its own skin, windowless, ignorant of what the other feelings are and mean. There would be a hundred-and-first feeling there, if, when a group or series of such feeling were set up, a consciousness belonging to the group as such should emerge

10. William James on combination problem
“Where the elemental units are supposed to be feelings, the case is in no wise altered. Take a hundred of them, shuffle them and pack them as close together as you can (whatever that might mean); still each remains the same feeling it always was, shut in its own skin, windowless, ignorant of what the other feelings are and mean. There would be a hundred-and-first feeling there, if, when a group or series of such feeling were set up, a consciousness belonging to the group as such should emerge” (James, 1890)

11. Awareness and content James’ confusion between awareness and content
Subjects: Ontologization of awareness
Feelings don’t “add” up but what about subjects?
Compound subjects (Whitehead, 1928).
Leverage “Atman = Brahman”?

12. Structure of awareness
One-pointedness mode
Decentered mode
Phenomenological clue to combination problem
Bypass issue of existence of topology prior to phenomenology

13. Combination principle?
Awareness binds configuration of lower level subjects
Binding can range from one-pointed focus to a decentered zoomed out focus.
Binding is dynamic: Tacit spacetime assumptions [Rosenberg thesis, 1997].
Leads to a hierarchical topology of subjects

14. Representation Topology connects higher level subject with lower
level subjects – possibility
space [Rosenberg, 1997].
Momentary awareness –
combination of
lower-level subjects.
Bypass spacetime issues

15. Subject topologies time “The Many become One and are increased by One”
(Whitehead, 1928)

16. Subject topologies (contd.)
Emergence model
“More is different” ( Philip Anderson, 1972)

17. Subject topologies (contd.)
“The One and the Many create the Few”

18. Panpsychism and Vedanta
Regardless of Advaita, Visistadvaita or Dvaita (Tattvavâda) orientation, Vedanta philosophies implicitly tell a combination story
All agree on the PAN aspect of awareness
Main difference – ultimate nature of subjects – irrelevant here.
Potential meeting ground (Griffin and Smith, 1990).

19. Conclusions Awareness/Content distinction fundamental
When I am aware, I am
Awareness all the way down: Pan-awareness
Combination problem for panpsychism
Compound subjects but not compound objects
Topology of subjects
Different Vedantas can still play role

20. Bibliography
Swami Sachidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Integral Yoga Pub., 1990.
Arthur Deikman, “I”=Awareness, JCS, 3:4, 1996.
David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, Oxford Univ. Press, 1996.
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Lotus Press, 1985.
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Free Press, 1928.
Galen Strawson, The Self, JCS, 4:5-6, 1997.
Gregg Rosenberg, A Place for Consciousness in the Natural World, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Indiana, 1997.
Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology, Shambhala, 2000.
David Ray Griffin and Huston Smith, Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology, SUNY Press, 1990.
William James, Principles of Psychology, 1890, Dover, 1955.
William Seager, Consciousness, Information and Panpsychism, JCS, 2:3, 1995.
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford Univ. Press, 1988.
Barry Dainton, The Gaze of Consciousness, JCS, 9:2, 2002.
Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta, Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1969.
Christian de Quincey, Radical Nature, Invisible Cities Press, 2002.

21. Discussion When I am aware, I am.
Combination problem: Clues from phenomenology.
Awareness operator - higher-level subjects.
Distinction between ontology and representation.
No a priori commitment to dual-aspect theory.
Probabilistic hierarchical model with emergent constraints.

22. Phenomenology Migraine headaches: Reliable and repeatable phenomena.
Two distinct modes of awareness:
Awareness concentrated at center of migraine.
Awareness detaches and is decentered.
Oscillation between modes.
Loss of awareness.

23. Intersubjectivity Hargens’s [JCS, 8:12 (2001)] taxonomy:
Intersubjectivity as spirit. Transcendental.
Intersubjectivity as context: Mesh.
Intersubjectivity as resonance:
Worldspace. Ontological: Empathy, Zelig.
Worldview: Epistemological: Culture.
Intersubjectivity as relationship:
It-It, I-It, I-I.

24. Representation
Taking van Gulick’s [JCS, 8:9-10] distinction between ontology and representation seriously.
Different from most standard ontologies.
Ontology
Subjects
Intersubjectivity
Phenomenal content
Compound subject
Momentary awareness
Representation
Objects
Relations
Properties
Part/whole relation
Processes