ABSTRACT
Contemporary defenders of panpsychism argue that there are two options. First, consciousness might be an emergent phenomenon, something that ‘arises’ when students put enough of the right kinds of particles together in the right way. Second, consciousness, far from being an add-on, might be present at the root level of the physical realm: panpsychism. Emergence was much discussed in the late 19th to early 20th centuries when influential philosophers and scientists came to doubt that classical physics had the resources to explain a range of complex chemical and biological phenomena. The popularity of emergence waned with the advent of quantum physics and its applications to chemistry. Emergent laws are required, not to explain goings-on in the universe, but simply to account for appearances, simply to account for the occurrence and nature of qualitatively imbued conscious experiences, the existence of which could scarcely be denied.
