What is It like to Be a Nail?—The Intentions of Matter

When discussing the intelligence of “artificially intelligent matter,” panpsychism comes to one’s mind. Panpsychism traces back over two millennia. It has recently been revived by philosophers such as David Chalmers in the context of the consciousness debate. It may serve as a framework to discuss psychism of artifacts. At the same time, it lends itself to foster reductionism, as the physical state of biological or artificial components is easier to describe than the physical state of a complete conscious entity such as a brain. A thoughtful view on panpsychism and reductionism reveals that the proto-consciousness of a thermostat—if there is any—is comparable to that of other lifeless matter, such as a nail. A contrasting view might be that consciousness is not a property emerging when assembling many proto-conscious components, but that it is a fragile property of complex entities that disappears when disassembling these entities into components. The second part of this chapter deals with intentions (not intentionality) as a precondition for the attribution of mind. While it is generally held up that thoughts and other high-level mental states are reserved to highly developed animals, one might consider intentions as a concept that can be rooted down to any form of life. Artifacts, however, are governed by external intentions. The perception of plausible intentions may play an important role in the attribution of intelligence.