PANPSYCHISM, LAWS OF

METAPHYSICS, AND THE

COMBINATION PROBLEM
Esteban Ortiz Medina
IIF-SADAF-CONICET/UBA
edeoeme[at]gmail[dot]com
Buenos Aires

Panpsychism is the view that phenomenal consciousness (or experience) is

fundamental in reality. Then, the experience is not reducible to or explicable
in terms of entirely non-experiential features of reality. In panpsychism, the
experience is in some sense involved with everything in reality, is ubiquitous.
But it’s important to say that this not necessarily implies that everything
is conscious. Panpsychism just needs to postulate that the fundamental
entities, whatever they may be, of the reality, instantiates experience. So the
panpsychist needn’t hold that a table (for example) has experience, just that
the tables’ fundamental constituents do.
To explain the phenomenal consciousness of a human being (for example),
panpsychism must postulate the fundamentality and ubiquity of experience.
Thus, the experience of humans, or other (non-fundamental dependent) en-
tities, are in some sense based (grounded, bounded, etc.) on the experience
of the fundamental constituents, whatever they may be, of the reality. The
fundamental constituents of reality usually are the microphysical entities pos-
tulated by physical science.
From the above, it follows that the main concern of panpsychism is the
combination problem. If the experience of humans, or other (non-fundamental
dependent) entities, are in some sense based on the experience of the mi-
crophysical entities postulated by physical science, then is very difficult to
make sense of how the microphysical entities with their micro-experiences
bound together to form a macrophysical entity with their respective macro-
experiences. It’s very difficult to make sense to the pass from the “little” to
the “big”. Specifically, it’s very difficult to make sense to the pass from the

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fundamental independent to the non-fundamental dependent.
Of course, there are some attempts to solve the combination problem.
Some based on causality and emergence, others based on grounding (and
related notions). The grounding (and related notions) based panpsychism
holds that the experience of humans, or other (non-fundamental dependent)
entities, is grounded on the experience of the microphysical entities postulated
by physical science. The experience of humans, or other (non-fundamental
dependent) entities, is not causally in virtue of the experience of the micro-
physical entities postulated by physical science. Instead, the causality and
emergence based panpsychism holds that the experience of humans, or other
(non-fundamental dependent) entities, is not grounded on the experience
of the microphysical entities postulated by physical science. Is emergent.
The experience of humans, or other (non-fundamental dependent) entities,
is causally emergent from the experience of the microphysical entities postu-
lated by physical science.
But the problem remains. None of these so-called solutions has the recog-
nition as the solution. And this is because it fails to tracking ontological
chains of dependence. There is no (causal or metaphysical) explanation of
how the microphysical entities with their micro-experiences bound together
to form a macrophysical entity with their respective macro-experiences be-
cause there is no explanation of how macro-experiences of the macrophysical
entity depends on the micro-experiences of the microphysical entities. Specif-
ically, there is no explanation that tracks the ontological chains of dependence
from the fundamental independent to the non-fundamental dependent.
Then, it’s necessary to add something more, a more strong principle,
a metaphysical toolkit that works to give a more explanation power and
ensures the connection between the fundamental independent and the non-
fundamental dependent. This work could do by the addition/postulation of
laws of metaphysics. For laws of metaphysics, I understand general prin-
ciples that play a core role in bringing support to the explanation. The
laws of metaphysics are bridges that guide the bottom-up development of
the fundamental independent to the non-fundamental dependent. The laws
of metaphysics are supporting linking principles that involve generalizations
to connect actually occurring conditions, source, to outcome conditions, the
result.
So, the propose of this research is to elaborate a (new and better) solu-
tion to the combination problem for panpsychism based in the laws of meta-
physics. In absence of the laws of metaphysics, the microphysical entities
with their micro-experiences and the macrophysical entity with their respec-
tive macro-experiences are just two disconnected things. In presence of the
laws of metaphysics, the microphysical entities with their micro-experiences

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go together connecting the development of the macrophysical entity with
their respective macro-experiences.

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