Recently I have been introduced to the panpsychism — a philosophical school of thought that puts the consciousness in the center of the universe by saying that all things, from infinitesimally tiny to humongously grand, possess certain degree of consciousness. The beauty of this theory is that it lives very well along with currently dominant materialism, because it posits that the presence of this conscious trait does not affect or alter any existing laws of nature and physical features that explain how things work, but rather complements them, explaining what they really are.

Having a background in natural science (I hold Masters in Chemistry), I found this approach very interesting and, in a way, inspiring. I love the idea of thinking about things having the conscious property that, on top of their physical properties, helps describe their purpose. Philosophy might be a hard nut to crack, especially when it comes to tricky and not so well defined things such as consciousness, so I've decided to go ahead and put in in a practical context. I've designed an imaginary web app that could be used to get information about different substances — just like a chemistry textbook would do — but also providing the additional layer of panpsychism.

If you were a chemistry student looking for the properties of Aluminium, your search results might look like this. This page provides all the regular information about the chemical element, including its atomic number, mass, crystal lattice structure and typical reactions as well as some of the details specific to panpsychism. For example, you can see that the aluminium oxide used as mirror coating does manifest a very simple form of consciousness. It sits right about the last electron on 3p orbital and does not interact with any of the physics involved. Just wants you to look lovely, that's all it is.

Here's another example, this time from the organic chemistry. Here you can see the glucose and fructose molecules — two parts of the famous sucrose that is, in turn, nothing less than the principal selling point of all of the sweet stuff on the market. In dietitian slang, glucose and fructose are also sometimes dubbed as "good" and "evil" parts of the sucrose disaccharide, the former being a source of energy and the latter just a useless junk. To pinpoint that, a panpsychist would add an extra "atom" to each of the molecules, thus gently infusing the humane nutritionist vocabulary into otherwise cold lanugage of chemical nomenclature. This might be helpful, for instance, in a food industry research paper. Notice how chemical bonds are dotted lines, indicating that they are not affecting the rest of the structure.

Let's stay in the food industry realm for a while. Here's another app screen that applies the same concept to the different scale — namely, on the scale of the day-to-day life objects that are slightly simpler for us to imagine as being conscious. Here's a panpsychism-flavoured chemical reaction that shows the process of consuming a sweet cookie — the one you badly crave, but somehow feel guilty and miserable right after consuming.

And here's the reaction for the classical story of an unrequited love: you invite your crush for a walk, they gracefully accept your invitation, and there you are two hours later: dragging your feet along, feeling down and broken-hearted, while they are strolling nearby, enjoying the weather and fresh air, naively wondering what's wrong with you.

And a final example, again involving the organic chemistry styled structures. Have you ever had issues with your day job? The one that gets you money but sometimes makes you feel deprived and a bit drained? Well, turns out there is always a way to remedy the situation by tweaking your time management — and by employing some breathing exercises while at work! You'll be surprised to find out how it will almost magically create more time and allow you to focus on your art even stronger. I say "almost magically" because, of course, in reality it's just pure science. Panpsychism, as you might have guessed.

That's it for now, thanks a lot for your attention! I hope you enjoyed the project — stay tuned for the next one!