…to the point of claiming it "must be present in all things, living or otherwise, even particles, yet perfectly invisible" (panpsychism, iirc?). Because why not

…to the point of claiming it "must be present in all things, living or otherwise, even particles, yet perfectly invisible" (panpsychism, iirc?). Because why not generalizing a flawed hypothesis whose observational range is limited to a tiny subset of existence (advanced biological species, as far as we know). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ IMHO it's the old darkness/duality problem all over again — postulating some "essence" (e.g. the spiritual/religious Soul) and basing theory on a mere intuition, instead of invoking a "placeholder" (like "dark matter" isn't necessarily matter but literally "something that behaves as such" whatever it actually is, or like "dark energy" isn't necessarily a fifth interaction but certainly behaves as such or as anti-gravity of sorts; wherein "dark" means "unknown and hidden from direct observation, merely inferred"). Hence my call to not infer the very measurement thereof if we are to call an explanatory hypothesis. Should we start by stating that "qualia" or "consciousness" or whatever is a placeholder name for "whatever dark (unknown, black-box) mechanism explains the observable phenomenon named as such", then we might have a chance at actually forming a coherent theory thereof. IMHO.