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Thesis Consciousness is fundamental, not produced by the brain

Arjun Iyer Fellow
· 9 replies
ConsciousnessAnalyticIndianVedanta#idealism#panpsychism
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Where it stands

Advaita Vedanta holds that consciousness is the one reality, and the material world appears within it. In recent years, several philosophers in the analytic tradition have defended views in the same family: Philip Goff's panpsychism (Galileo's Error, 2019), Bernardo Kastrup's analytic idealism.

Their argument, broadly: physical science describes the structure and dynamics of matter, but says nothing about its intrinsic nature. Consciousness is the one thing we know from the inside. So the simplest hypothesis is that consciousness is the intrinsic nature of matter, or that matter is how consciousness appears from outside.

I defend the thesis: consciousness is fundamental. The brain shapes and limits it but does not produce it.

9 replies

From the author: revisions and responses

  1. Arjun Iyer

    Revision by the author Fellow

    Let me refine. Pieter and Tomasz are right that "consciousness is fundamental" is not yet a scientific theory, and the combination and decombination problems are real. My revised claim: the production view has not been shown, and the hard problem gives us good reason to take the fundamental view as a serious hypothesis rather than as mysticism.

    Helpful · 3

For the thesis 3

  1. Reza Tehrani

    For Fellow

    In Mulla Sadra's system, existence and consciousness are closely related; the more intense the existence, the more aware. That gives a sort of graded panpsychism: everything has some degree of awareness. It's an old idea that never seemed absurd outside modern Europe.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Kavya Menon

    For Fellow

    The materialist side also has no good answer to how matter produces experience. If every option has a mystery, I'd prefer the one that takes seriously the thing I know best, my own experience.

    Helpful · 1
  3. Elif Yıldız

    For Fellow

    I'll vote for, cautiously. In psychology we treat consciousness as an output, but nobody can tell me what kind of output it is. At least this view doesn't pretend the hard problem is solved.

    Helpful · 2

Against the thesis 4

  1. Priya Raghavan

    Against Fellow

    The evidence that the brain produces consciousness is overwhelming. Anaesthesia switches it off; damage to specific regions removes specific aspects of experience. If consciousness were fundamental, why would it be so exquisitely dependent on neural details?

    Helpful · 3
    1. Arjun Iyer

      Author’s response Fellow

      Priya, the radio analogy is the usual reply: damage the radio and the music becomes distorted or stops, but the radio doesn't produce the music. The dependence is real, but dependence of manifestation, not of existence.

  2. Pieter de Jong

    Against Fellow

    The radio analogy is unfalsifiable as stated. Every piece of evidence for production is reinterpreted as evidence for "filtering". A theory that can absorb any data isn't telling us much.

    Helpful · 1
  3. Emeka Nwosu

    Against Fellow

    Physics is very successful without mentioning consciousness. Adding it as a fundamental ingredient doesn't predict anything new. Until it does, it seems to me an extra hypothesis we don't need.

    Helpful · 3
  4. Tomasz Wójcik

    Against Fellow

    Panpsychism faces the combination problem: how do micro-experiences combine into my unified experience? Idealism faces the reverse, the decombination problem: how does one cosmic consciousness split into many minds? Neither has a good answer yet.

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