The idea that some form of "awareness" is everywhere, pervading everything, was considered obvious by the preponderance of pre-civilized cultures, and is now considered obvious by most practitioners of Buddhist meditation and many other wisdom traditions.
However, modern Western culture has led to a world-view in which most of the universe is viewed as somehow "dead" while only certain particular systems are viewed as having "awareness."
This new view of awareness has led to all manner of conceptual problems which philosophers enjoy debating. But, panpsychism -- the old view that acknowledges awareness everywhere -- remains the only view of awareness that is not plagued by complex contradictions ... as well as being an obvious truth to intelligences in appropriate states of consciousness.
Clearly, there are differences between the manifestations of awareness in a rock, a human, a society, an ecosystem and a universe -- and these differences are worth attention and study. But we mustn't lose track of the universality and commonality of awareness.
Awareness as First
In Peircean terms, "raw awareness" is First. Saying that everything is aware is saying that everything can be viewed from the perspective of First.
When we view things from the perspective of Thirdness, relationship, then the difference between humans and rocks seems dramatic and significant. We humans host far more complex pattern-networks than rocks.
Yet from the First perspective, we're all just sparks of raw awareness -- people, rocks, equations, aliens from the 9th dimension... whatever.
It is unclear to me, at this point, whether you are proposing this, "we're all just sparks of raw awareness -- people, rocks, equations, ...." as,
ReplyDelete1. Proven,
2. An interesting, if possibly unlikely viewpoint,
3. A metaphysical assumption, crucial to acceptance of further, "Cosmist," ideas.
I can, provisionally, make that assumption just to see where it leads; I'd just prefer to be clear what I'm being asked to do.
I'm also bothered by the use of the word, "Awareness," here -- it seems to be 'trivialized' to the point where the only thing to be aware of is other awarenesses.
(Perhaps you're 'unaware' of it, but you're verging on the fundamental 'assumption' of Scientology here. :) )
G.