Galileo's Error

‘I exist as a conscious being’ (p. 4). It is with this Cartesian conviction that Philip Goff begins his bold and lucid popular book Galileo's Error. It is a conviction many will share. Perhaps few, for now, will follow Goff to where he thinks this conviction leads–namely, to panpsychism, the view that ‘consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world’ (p. 23). It ‘sounds crazy’, Goff admits (p. 114). But there is nothing so strange it could not be true. As Goff reminds us, time slows down at high speeds according to the special theory of relativity. And on standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, particles have no determinate location until observed. If these and other scientific theories do violence to common sense, it is common sense that must suffer; a scientific theory must be judged by its explanatory power. Goff only asks the same for panpsychism....

Consciousness · Conviction · Epistemology · Galileo (satellite navigation) · Nothing · Physics · Scientific theory · Theoretical physics · Theory of relativity · Law · Philosophy · Quantum Mechanics and Applications

• On the qualitative nature of conscious states

  Open Access•C Salazar•Anthropology of Consciousness•2024

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