And if digital computers are conscious at the hardware level, the universe is conscious.
> Personally, I consider myself a physicalist, but I’m also a panpsychist – because physics doesn’t really seem to deal in hard absolutes, and I find it straightforward to consider that everything is conscious to some greater or lesser degree
You might easily be you because if you weren't it'd be an evolutionary dead end. Everything with the ability to make choices ahs to believe at some level that it has more of a right to exist than the systems they consume energy more.
Not necessarily.
Everything has a "right to exist". Otherwise, it probably wouldn't.
Everything that exists has not only a "right" but also a "requirement" to consume energy from the universe in order to survive.
Sometimes, the only way to meet this "requirement" is to exclude others from doing the same.
Doing so doesn't necessarily make you any better or worse than others. Any more than the universe is good or bad for creating you with an instinct and a "requirement" for survival.
Bottom line: Being egotistical doesn't mean you are better able to survive, it just means you are more arrogant and delusional about doing so. Personally, I believe the universe favors reality over delusion.
A part of the universe is objectively conscious.
Each consciousness is a universe on its own. Matter is just how those universes interact with each other. This is how quantum mechanics work in my idea, each observer affects the matter and quantum effects take most probable outcomes because of that.