Evolutionary Gradualism
Overview
There seems to be an unbroken, gradual, continuous evolutionary trajectory from simple chemical systems to humanity. As we observe this trajectory, it seems the key change is increasing functional capabilities based on physical systems interacting in more complex ways. Where would something non-physical appear in this journey?
Responses
It is possible to interpret qualitative shifts along the evolutionary trajectory, such as the emergence of neuronal architectures, cell boundaries, and multi-cellular organisms, as well as qualitatively new functions such as self-representation, predictive processing, and memory. Perhaps some of those shifts create a new capability for interacting or channelling non-physical phenomena.
This argument favours a panpsychist interpretation. If there is a gradual evolutionary trajectory and we are suspicious that a new type of phenomenon can emerge midway, then consciousness must have been present from the beginning. This could be a CF-style panpsychism, e.g. a single bit flip or logic gate equivalent operation counts as consciousness, or a more traditional physicalist panpsychism, e.g. some fundamental physical entity already has some minimal form of consciousness. However, either of these is quite different from the emergent and complex view of consciousness preferred in contemporary CF theories.
Do you find this argument strong or weak?