From the perspective of panpsychism or radical naturalism, consciousness and energy, mind and matter, subject and object always go together. All matter-energy is intrinsically sentient and experiential. Sentience-consciousness and matter-energy are inseparable, but nevertheless distinct. On this view, consciousness is the process of matter-energy informing itself.

Metaphors of Meaning

Although our language is biased toward physics-energy talk, full of mechanistic metaphors, this is clearly not the whole story. The vernacular of the marketplace, as well as the language of science itself, is also rich with non-mechanistic metaphors, metaphors that flow direct from experience itself. Ironically, not only do we apply these consciousness metaphors to the mind and mental events, but also to the world of matter in our attempts to understand its deeper complexities and dynamics. For example, systems theory and evolutionary biology—even at the reductionist level of molecular genetics—are replete with words such as “codes,” “information,” “meaning,” “self-organizing,” and the p-word: “purpose.” So we are not limited to mechanistic metaphors when describing either the world of matter or the world of mind. But—and this is the important point—because of our bias toward visuo-muscular images, we tend to forget that metaphors of the mind are sui generis, and, because of our scientific and philosophical bias in favor of mechanism, we often attempt to reduce metaphors of the mind to metaphors of matter.

My proposal for consciousness talk is this: Recognize the limitations of mechanistic metaphors, and the inappropriateness of literal energy talk, when discussing consciousness. Instead, acknowledge the richness and appropriateness of metaphors of meaning when talking about the mind. In short: Drop mechanistic metaphors (energy talk) and take up meaning metaphors (consciousness talk) when talking about consciousness.

References

Bergson, H. (1911), Creative evolution. Trans. A. Mitchell. New York: Dutton.

de Quincey, C. (1997), Consciousness: The final frontier? In Noetic Sciences Review, No. 42, 30-33.

Dossey, L. (1997), Energy talk. In Network, No. 63, 3-7).

Griffin, D. R. (1997), Panexperientialist physicalism and the mind-body problem. In Journal of Consciousness Studies. Vol. 4, 248-268.

Sartre, J-P (1956), Being and nothingness. Trans, H. E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library.

Whitehead, A. N. (1979), Process and reality: An essay in cosmology. Eds. D. R. Griffin & D. W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press.

Woodhouse, M. B. (1996), Paradigm wars. Berkeley, CA: Frog Ltd.