Panpsychism’s combination problem is a problem for everyone

Panpsychism, the view that the phenomenal experiences of macrophysical items, like ourselves, are nothing over and above combinations of phenomenal experiences of microphysical items, seems to be committed to various sorts of mental combination: in order to yield experiences such as our own, it seems that experiences, subjects, and phenomenal characters would have to mentally combine. The combination problem for panpsychism is that of explaining precisely how the required forms of mental combination occur. This paper argues that, given a few plausible assumptions, the panpsychist’s combination problems are not different in kind from other combination problems that are problems for everyone: the problem of phenomenal unity, the problem of mental structure, and the problem of explaining how we can have experiences in new quality spaces. Explaining how mental things combine is a big problem, and it is a problem for everyone.