#629 Author and Philosopher Peter Ells

Please join Dave the Mystic on Monday, May 29, 2023 at 8pm MDT with guest Peter Ells.  Peter became interested in the mind-body problem after reading Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett. Dennett proposes that qualitative experiences, such as a feeling of pain, or the scent of new-mown grass, do not exist. He claims that, although it seems to us that we have this phenomenology, we do not actually do so. Peter utterly disagreed with this, but it made him realize that any explanation of mind in terms of physics must be extremely difficult.

After five years of extensive study, Peter had developed his ideas sufficiently to write a draft manuscript on panpsychism, which is the philosophical position that mind exists – albeit in extremely primitive form – everywhere in the universe. Peter took an MA degree at the University of Reading, writing his thesis on the mind-body problem, and used this experience to improve his manuscript, which was then published as Panpsychism.

Peter’s latest book, Mind, Quantum, and Free Will, was published in December 2022. Peter had always wanted his ideas to be bound as closely as possible to a specific theory of contemporary physics. Only in this way would the theory gain sufficient credibility. He believes his new book fulfils this promise.  Please see https://pan-idealism.com/

Thanks for listening!

Blessings

Dave the Mystic