panpsychism

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Panpsychism is the universal-mindedness inference that AB explicitly withholds from embodied participation: belonging to the same field as perceived things does not mean everything is secretly mind. RB2 likewise rejects a crude leveling of sensible world and sentient body. The term functions here as a contrast, not as a developed or endorsed account of consciousness.

Explanation

AB's caution is integral to its account of flesh. The body senses, whereas the world's availability to sensation does not make every encountered being a perceiving subject. A remainder escapes the perceiver's grasp; intimacy is not identity or annexation. The narrative note accordingly names a refusal of panpsychism while retaining a narrower, non-doctrinal animism.

RB2 makes the corresponding asymmetry explicit: continuity within sensible existence does not show that stones perceive as humans do. It calls the rejected collapse crude panpsychism and distinguishes it from situated attention to assemblage effects. Neither passage supplies a taxonomy of panpsychist theories or a refutation of every possible version; the supported entry records the books' local boundary on their own claims.

Scope and attribution

Direct contrastive treatment in AB and RB2 only. No comprehensive definition or philosophical refutation is supplied. PB/RB3 had no literal matches; RB1 matches are a cited title.

AB — The Actual Book

Participation without panpsychism limits the inference from belonging to the same field of being. The gap between perceiver and world prevents fusion.

Occurrence locators: 112; Notes: 242.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

The flesh discussion rejects crude panpsychism as leveling identity while retaining narrower animist attention compatible with asymmetry.

Occurrence locators: 159.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.