This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
Philosophy bytes is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
Philosophy bytes is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
Tables or telephones are made out of physical matter, of course, and they don't experience pain or see colors.
We humans, too, are made out of physical matter, and we know that the stuff out of which we're created somehow gives rise to or constitutes consciousness and subjective experience.
For there's something it is like to be me.
I feel pain, see blue, smell roses.
So what about the table or telephone?
Since they're made of exactly the same stuff?
Might it be possible that something similar could be said about at least some of the particles that make up a table or telephone?
Might there be something it is like to be a particle in a table?
Crazy.
Absurd.
The philosopher Galen Strawson argues that this conclusion may, in the end, be hard to resist.
Galen Strawson, welcome to philosophy bites.
Pleased to be back.
The topic we're going to focus on is panpsychism.
Now, that's quite an exotic theory.
I wonder if you could just sketch what it is.