Panpsychism is the idea that everything, every particle, the ink on the page, the atoms, all have some infinitesimal degree of psyche or consciousness, and somehow this consciousness is combined in some way from our cells and the rest of our bodies to create this kind of superconsciousness.

Scientists are now learning that more and more animals and creatures — going all the way down possibly to insects — are conscious. So that’s one interesting issue: We’re sharing consciousness with more creatures.

Is consciousness something that a machine can possess? Are we more like intelligent machines or conscious, feeling animals? Who are we? So I think we’re approaching this kind of Copernican moment of redefinition.

Matthieu Ricard said: It’s like a river has a name, and that conventional name is very useful, but there’s nothing consistent there. It’s just water passing.

The other reason I think we’re not close to it is that everything that machines know, the data set on which they’re trained, is information on the internet. They don’t have friction with nature. They don’t have friction with us. Some of the most important things we know are about person-to-person contact, about contact with nature — this friction... See more