What Matter Feels
Robert Pepperell, PhD
IRM Editions (2024)
ISBN: 978-1068523205
Reviewed by Lily Andrews for Reader Views (02/2025)
Robert Pepperell’s “What Matter Feels: Consciousness, Energy and Physics (How Science Can Explain Minds)” is an innovative and insightful book that aims to show that everything, including inanimate objects, has a psychological state and agency.
Pepperell notes in the opening pages that some prominent European philosophers and scientists of the modern era enthusiastically embraced hylozoism, which encompasses the idea that objects that are forced against feel both pleasure and displeasure when they regain equilibrium. By pointing out that humans are actually a material system made up of water, proteins, lipids, and various other things, he attempts to pique the interest of those who would immediately dismiss the concept, arguing that the same chemicals found in the human brain are also found in inanimate objects.
In this work, he introduces a new scientific paradigm that investigates the idea that consciousness might emerge from material systems. Furthermore, he provides a comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary processes that shape biological objects, a novel scientific hypothesis that explains the connection between mental processes and brain activity, and an exploration of how science could explain the human mind.
This book, which the author refers to as a “treatise,” is actually a surprisingly diverse work that integrates ideas and techniques from the humanities, sciences, and arts. In contrast to a mono-disciplinary approach, it has a framework that takes advantage of a greater variety of viewpoints. Its tools and techniques establish a new area of scientific investigation by providing a revolutionary means of forecasting and evaluating the psychological behavior of both living and non-living systems. It effectively lays up a framework for researching the link between mind and matter in a way that prior publications have not done.
I love the way Dr. Pepperell encourages discussion and investigation in a variety of disciplines to present a more comprehensive picture of the universe in “What Matter Feels.” Notably, he defines unique psychological features of matter and provides methodologies for scientifically evaluating hypotheses that may explain the neurobiology of perceiving pleasure and sorrow, life’s growth, artistic merit, and consciousness. Though extremely intricate, his work is captivating and thought-provoking, as is his unquestionably superb presentation of data and discoveries.