Lately I've been becoming more and more convinced by panpsychism. The idea that experiences isn't dependent on brains or "information processing" in general which seems to make some speculate that even computers have some sort of experience (which panpsychism wouldn't be against, but not because a computer processes information), but that experiences is integral to matter itself. In that way our experiences wouldn't be a new phenomenon fabricated by our brains but fundamental to the universe itself. A year ago or so I probably would have considered it silly, as most people I talk to seem to think it is when I try to bring it up now :D

I can see why it seems silly, it does feel intuitively silly. But the popular view of panpsychism, or at least my own (!), isn't that tables and chairs experience things as unified objects, but that their constituent individual parts do. I can't say where the line is drawn but perhaps at the level of atoms.

And it doesn't mean that I believe that individual atoms are having complicated experiences as we do. But that different atoms, just as they have different measurable chemical properties they might also have different types of experiences. It sounds completely nuts, but maybe some type of atom (let's say all carbon atoms) just experiences the color green, and others experience what we identify as pressure, another as what we identify as warmth.

This is such a complicated subject and it's easy to think that "Hey no, what, photons are colors and temperature is just vibrations, what's he talking about." and that's a mistake I make if I'm not careful. It's of course true that photons of different wavelengths are tightly and reliably coupled to our experiences of color, but we never actually experience the photons that create the experiences, they simply start the process that culminate in the experience, just as the experience of warmth and cold in my fingers isn't the actual experience of vibrations in the atoms in the cells in my fingers, but is simply what activates the neurons in my fingers which passes along signals to my brain that somehow uses the experience of temperature to represent what is going on in my fingers.

There's a few arguments for panpsychism but just like their alternative theories of mind it all seems to boil down to "what feels right". Like how:
- if you don't believe that consciousness is an integral part of matter itself but only a property of brains (or computers), and you only believe in a material world, then you have to see consciousness as an entirely new phenomenon which is also material in nature but can only be created through specific interactions between other material objects. Which leads to fun questions such as what type of material interactions result in conscious experiences? Maybe I'm misrepresenting but that's at least how I would express it if I had been forced to express my views a couple of years ago, and that might have "felt right" to me then, but now it doesn't. Now it feels more right that consciousness is part of matter, or is matter itself.

That's not really what I want to talk about though. The route I want to take is through consciousness. I don't know exactly how, but there's "something" there, an obvious and seemingly trivial fact that I don't think is quite so trivial but I can't express how, and that's what I want to ask you about...taking a long time to get to it but I thought it was relevant to have a little background.

I'll just explain how I view consciousness.

It's clear to me that there's no processing in consciousness. (after a whole lot of introspection and podcasts and articles, this is almost a fact to me)
From my view consciousness is like the computer-screen that I'm writing on. Funny enough, in a way my computer-screen substitutes for my internal voice as I'm writing right now, and I'm only finding out what I'm saying as the words appear on the screen. Just like my internal voice just appears. Everything just appears, and I might think "Hey, no, I can control things. I can snap my fingers anytime I want." But those words also just arrived.
Anyway, consciousness is like the computer-screen. It has no control over what will enter it and become a part of it. What enters consciousness is a result of processes happening behind the scenes of which consciousness has no direct experience of, unless the reasons behind the conscious experiences are asked for afterwards "Why did I do that?", and not asked for by consciousness, but of the processes themselves. The question just appears, and then an answer comes in, or a failure in finding an answer. And then another question "Am I stupid?" followed by "Oh come on, get a hold of yourself.".
So if that's true, then what's the point of consciousness? I think it's a way of integrating different types of information in order to better make decisions, and this information is represented in experiences.

That's cool. But it doesn't really get at the issue.
...and this is where it gets really weird and interesting, at least to me. And where my confusion will be more apparent.
Why is consciousness conscious? Is experience conceptually necessary to represent and integrate information? Why if consciousness is just a container of information is it conscious? Why is the information aware?

Conceptually I want to make a division here. Into the material consciousness and the experiential consciousness. Let's call it MC and EC. (maybe there's terminology for it already, I'm such a noob).

Now MC would be whatever material substance you can imagine that might exist in the brain, neurons, molecules, atoms, synapses, signal transmitting molecules, the ions responsible for generating the electric potential, the electric potential itself, the calcium-ion waves in the astrocyte networks. Anything material in the brain which could give rise to our conscious experiences, and could be used to represent and integrate various information. (as has been the proposed function of consciousness (at least that was some of my take from this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122207/)).
EC. Our conscious experiences. The qualia. Whatever it's like to be us. I could just call it qualia I suppose and not appear pretentious, but I'm trying to make a distinction here between what might give rise to qualia and qualia itself. Which might already be what qualia means.

I've heard this idea before. That conscious experience could just be a side-effect, like smoke rising from a train-engine and which has no bearing on the train itself. The train in this case would be MC and the smoke would be EC. But this idea seems intuitively and I think, as close as we can get to certainty, wrong.

First of all, why in the world are we making such a big deal out EC if it's just a side-effect with no bearing on the underlying processing which is causing me to write these letters (what the hell is MC doing in that case?)? Why has my processing-powers for the last two hours been pushed to their limits just trying to make sense of it, instead of doing something evolutionary relevant like finding a girlfriend? Why would I even be making a distinction between material substrate of consciousness and qualia?

Secondly, if EC is just a side-effect and we're just a long for the ride, then why do experiences so reliably match with reality? It seems at least like it wouldn't be a requirement, but a happy coincidence in that case that we're not just experiencing random noise (or constant pain).

I think the "first of all" is the most important one. And there is the obvious and seemingly trivial fact that I was talking about. Consciousness, awareness, experiences, qualia, have an impact on the material world. Because I experience experiences I will now snap my fingers.
I did. It was very dramatic.
And finally. Here comes the first non-rethorical questions, but feel free to comment on whatever you want of course. But here's what I'm mostly curious about.
Are you convinced that qualia can affect the world?
If so doesn't that say something significant about the nature of reality?
What do you believe it says?

Side-note:
Still seems very strange to imagine how if conscious experience resides in individual atoms these can somehow be communicated to other atoms and in turn result in my communicating them here. Maybe not conscious atoms then. Or who knows.