a science of consciousness would need to posit consciousness as a fundamental feature of the world. And if consciousness is fundamental, he argues, we should expect it, like other fundamental features of the world—mass, charge, spin—to be pervasive; we should expect to find it not only in humans and not only in all sentient creatures, but also in simpler life forms, such as plants, and even in inanimate objects. Though this position, which is a form of panpsychism, may seem absurd, Chalmers argues that it is less absurd than the idea that consciousness could be explained structurally.
