Causation

When regarded only from the reductionist standpoint (i.e. from the typically human perspective), it is understandable that we may fail to discern any logically necessary connection between distinct "events in time" just as we may fail to discern any logically necessary connection between distinct "objects in space". Thus any connection between causally related events cannot be accounted for in terms other than those of habitual association (as initially pointed out by David Hume). But it is the reductionist standpoint that leads us to assume that events are ontologically distinct, and this standpoint is called into question when we introduce the notion of mutual immanence. The wholeness implied by mutual immanence yields a single unfolding process that is complete in itself, but  that divides into a multiplicity of distinct objects interacting with each other in a multiplicity of distinct events. So now the connection between causally related events (the “cause” and the “effect”) should be viewed as the conceived stages of an otherwise unbroken process. In terms of that implied wholeness (and consistent with the results of the Suarez “before-before” experiment - see appendix 1), all notions of spatiotemporal causal mechanism would be rendered meaningless. In panexperientialism, then, instantiations of consciousness do not causally interact with each other - rather their harmonization is a consequence of their mutual immanence. The idea of causation is part of the conceptual world model that appears as part of the constituents of consciousness - i.e. it is an artifact of human psychology.