Die ontstaan van die menslike bewussyn : bied panpsigisme 'n uitweg?

Abstract

Although evolution is a very important concept in contemporary biology, it does not help to answer the question to the origin of the human consciousness. If all reductionist theories are ruled out because it tries to reduce consciousness to an objective aspect of the natural world and ignore the storytellers’ (consciousness) subjective side, panpsychism seems to be a favourable candidate for an alternative theory. The so called Copenhagen-interpretation furthermore brought an end to determinism and classical objectivity and pointed out that our reality is partly created by the observer. The work of Alfred North Whitehead establish the basis on which Christian de Quincey build his theory and attempt to build a bridge between the objective physical and the subjective psyche. Panpsychism provide a post-modern solution to the problem of identifying the origin of consciousness by presenting a relationship between psyche and physis as two temporal ordained poles of the same experiencing individual entity. The interaction between psyche and matter become a relationship between events or “moments of experience” where, through the natural process of the flow of time, subjects (psyches) become objects (physical matter). Time, as the lost link in the recurring body/mind problem is the radical solution for the explanation gap between physical systems and conscious systems. The reductionist solution demand an ontological leap (the emergence of an entity with an interior, subjective viewpoint from completely objective entities); and this is not the case with panpsychism (where primordial experience are already subjective and the emergence of consciousness or conscious experience are not an ontological objective to subjective leap). Mind and body is separated on a numerical level but not on an ontological level. Mind and body is of the same sort, type or reality – the inevitable creation and decline of experience. Psyche is therefore the unifying process of all the total hierarchy of events. Panpsychism however has many deficiencies and these deficiencies are also critically analysed.