Title: Fundamental Consciousness with Fruitful Features

Abstract: Panpsychists argue that understanding human consciousness will become significantly easier if we posit that consciousness exists at the fundamental level of the universe. For instance, if fundamental particles possess consciousness, it seems not so strange that complex entities like humans can also have consciousness. However, there is one significant challenge for panpsychism, the infamous “combination problem”. How can the consciousness of different fundamental entities combine to produce the consciousness of a human being? Numerous attempts have been made to address the combination problem. However, currently, there is no widely accepted viewpoint that any of these attempts can effectively resolve the issue. In this paper, I intend to propose a novel solution to the combination problem. Roughly, I will suggest that human consciousness is identical to the consciousness of micro fundamental entities. My proposal introduces a significant novelty by constructing four main theses: the Fundamentality Thesis, the Heterogeneity Thesis, the Structure Matters Thesis, and the Successive Subjects Thesis.

The paper is outlined as follows: Section 1 is the introduction. Section 2 offers additional background on the combination problem and briefly introduces existing responses. Section 3 presents my own theory for addressing the combination problem, arguing for its four core theses. Section 4 will locate my theory within a spectrum of some existing responses to the problem and highlight some of its advantages over others. Finally, Section 5 will address some potential criticisms of my theory. Overall, this theory not only addresses the combination problem but also introduces a concrete framework for understanding phenomenal consciousness. In this sense, this new perspective, to some extent, contributes to the most crucial issue, namely accounting for human consciousness, in the philosophy of mind. Specifically, since my theory is a panpsychist variant of Russellian Monism, I argue for Russellian panpsychism as well.