The Problems of Structural Discrepancy

Abstract

This chapter considers a particular set of combination problems facing panpsychism, based on the apparent structural discrepancy between human consciousness and the microphysical structure of the brain. These problems have been termed the revelation problem, the palette problem, and the mismatch problem, and this chapter seeks to resolve them by developing a series of connected hypotheses about how phenomenal qualities combine and blend based on informational relations among them: the radical confusion hypothesis, the small palette hypothesis, and the informational structure hypothesis. These hypotheses are also shown to be compatible with moderate versions of the revelation thesis, the idea that by undergoing experience we are acquainted with the nature of experience.