Agent Causation and Panpsychism

I have recently become fond of the view, found in authors as different as Berkeley and Reid, that not only is there such a thing as agent causation, but that agent causation is the only sort of causation that is out there. It is easy to see why Berkeley would hold this view, given his metaphysics. And Philonous' reply to Hylas' humean bundle theory of the self presents as well as anyone can the intuitive, experiential basis of the belief that minds (or "spirits" in Berkeley's lovely word) are causes.

But suppose we consider a different sort of idealistic metaphysic. Instead supposing there are animal minds and God (and maybe angels and demons), suppose that there is a world independent of both God and finite animal minds. But do not suppose this world to be composed of dumb matter. Suppose it rather to be at its most basic level consisting of simple minds, proto minds maybe even. This is the sort of panpsychism that Hartshorne held and I think its consistent with Sprigge and Chalmers (in his bolder moments) as well as Galen Strawson.

Yet these little minds are not experienced as such. They are known not as minds but as the fundamental particles of physics, of which science provides us with a great deal of structural (but no intrinsic) knowledge.

One structural feature of these particles is that they enter into causal relations with each other. Usually this sort of causation is thought of as "event causation," a notion of cause that, as Hume powerfully argued, we have no intuitive grasp of.

But if these elementary particles are little minds, then should we not start thinking of the causal processes that go on among them as being analogous to that which we are aware of in our moments of decision. It is just an analogy, and one need not imagine and electron deliberating about whether to make this quantum leap or that. All one needs to say is that whatever deep metaphysical fact allows agent causation in us is also present throughout the universe.

Like all idealist theories there is an organic unity and wholeness in this view that split universe dualistic theories lack. Like both dualistic and other idealistic theories, the panpsychist view remainds true to those facts that are most well known to use, the phemomena of our own subjective experience.