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Full Idea
It would be odd for a fundamental property like experience to be instantiated for the first time only relatively late in the history of the universe, and even then only in occasional complex systems.
Gist of Idea
It is odd if experience is a very recent development
Source
David J.Chalmers (The Conscious Mind [1996], 3.8.4)
Book Ref
Chalmers,David J.: 'The Conscious Mind' [OUP 1997], p.297
A Reaction
The assumption of this remark is that experience is 'fundamental', which seems to claim that it is a separate ontological category. Maybe, but experience doesn't seem to be a thing. 'Process' seems a better term, and that is not a novelty in the universe.
| 22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
| 5711 | The earth is and always has been an insentient being [Lucretius] |
| 5712 | Particles may have sensation, but eggs turning into chicks suggests otherwise [Lucretius] |
| 23224 | That all matter thinks is absurd, and would make each part of our bodies a distinct self-consciousness [Bentley] |
| 12698 | Every body contains a kind of sense and appetite, or a soul [Leibniz] |
| 12760 | Something rather like souls (though not intelligent) could be found everywhere [Leibniz] |
| 5510 | Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 23230 | Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte] |
| 19257 | Whatever is First must be sentient [Peirce] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2543 | Brains aren't made of anything special, suggesting panpsychism [McGinn] |
| 2424 | It is odd if experience is a very recent development [Chalmers] |