Panentheism, Panpsychism, Theism
The Matter of Wonder April 3, 2023 Loriliai Biernacki
Abhinavagupta's panentheism centers on the term vimarśa as the essence of sentience, which more closely aligns with contemporary neuroscientific and philosophical understandings of consciousness than traditional Sanskrit terms like cit, citi, or saṃvid. His philosophy prioritizes vimarśa because of its connection to activity and material reality. Employing a dual-aspect monism, he distinguishes between consciousness as a fabric of reality and awareness as a first-person perspective, implying a pervasive subjectivity even within matter. This framework is applied to modern debates on computer sentience, machine AI, and Nick Bostrom's paperclip apocalypse scenario.