While many of my readers are philosophers, or have at least studied philosophy for a while at university, many are not. So I was reluctant to get into metaphysical debates within philosophy, fearing that they might get too high-brow, instead focusing on meta-philosophy, which I believe is fairly easy to communicate.

But my discussions here with nonnaturalist skeptics about consciousness science, such as with Philip Goff or Nino Kadic, inevitably get down to metaphysical arguments about intrinsic or categorical properties. Perhaps not surprising given that they are engaged in analytic metaphysics—a subdiscipline of philosophy that I’ve argued in a series of essays is a counter-Englightenment project not at all conducive to the central philosophical goal of understanding the world.

Due to repeated demand, let me respond to one of the only two main arguments for panpsychism listed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on panpsychism.

The so-called intrinsic nature argument.

(The other argument is the alleged inability for science to fully........

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