The prevailing view of materialism (now called physicalism which now includes the findings of quantum field theory in addition to that included within the old materialist paradigm) is that consciousness is the result of brain processes – when brain complexity and hence processes exceed a  certain threshold of electro-chemical activity, consciousness suddenly arises and the degree of the conscious experience is directly related to that brain activity.  Increased brain activity and  conscious experience should increase as well. In other words, conscious experience takes place within the brain and because of it and not outside of it (more on that later).  The implications are clear: when the brain dies so does consciousness and all our experiences and memories of a lifetime along with it. But, has this assertion really been proven by science?

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That consciousness as an epiphenomenon (i.e. a byproduct) of brain complexity and processing is just an assumption that supports physicalism which has never had any empirical evidence to support it.  After all the research that has been done over the last 30 years, neuroscience still cannot say where conscious experience takes place in the brain (i.e. The Hard Problem of Consciousness – a concept introduced by Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers). Correlation yes, causation no. Brain activity is a reflection of brain metabolism (oxygen and glucose uptake) which results in electrochemical triggering of the synapses between neurons firing in the brain which can be measured by various brain technologies and some of these measures, like brain waves, are an indirect reflection of actual brain activity.

 

First and foremost,  we need to define what we mean by brain activity. Are we talking about brain waves and their frequency spectrum, brain wave coherence, electro-chemical neuronal firings and their magnitude at the synapses, or voltage gradients or current flow between and within the neurons, power/energy spectrum, or actual metabolism as measured by oxygen and glucose uptake plus several other factors. Are we talking about specific brain regions associated with motor control, sensory perceptions, memory or cognitive functions or the interfaces between them? etc.?

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Admittingly the brain is the most complex organ in the known universe with 85 billion neurons in a typical adult brain and each neuron having roughly 50,000 synapses (analogue inputs and outputs each to other neurons). These signal pathways can be excitatory or inhibitory. However, one has to be very careful about how one interprets brain activity.  Correlation and causations of experiences are two separate things and having a conscious experience is very different from reporting that one is having the experience (the latter requires metacognition). 

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I’m not doubting the efficacy of meditation; it does affect brain states – it increases brain coherence and is usually associated with higher frequencies of around 40 hertz. But I’m talking about brain activity that is reduced (reduction of brain metabolism) during non-ordinary and altered states of consciousness. In these cases, brain metabolism is significantly lowered (e.g. a reduction in oxygen and glucose uptake and, in some cases, it is completely stopped) and yet people report incredible non-ordinary or transpersonal experiences, (“way more vivid and real than ordinary reality”).  This is something that cannot happen according to the materialist paradigm where reduced brain activity should lead to a reduction in the conscious experience.

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I know a fair amount about brain states and consciousness but I know I am not a subject matter expert and I do not have the PhD credentials behind my name. But, I know enough to have some idea what I don’t know.  When I read papers or hear viewpoints by credentialed  people (PhDs) who are subject matter experts and who offer reasonable explanations and interpretations, I tend to listen to them. 

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Nowadays, many people who write articles for magazines are journalists, authors  or writers and not trained as experts in the scientific discipline they are reporting on.  They form interpretations based on superficial knowledge, on their own biases (such as materialist assumptions enculturated within them), by their beliefs, or what they are told by so-called experts whose work they are reporting on without understanding the details, ramifications and nuances of the subjects they are writing about.  They don’t have the background nor understanding to ask deep penetrating questions to get to the bottom or to the implications of what they are writing about  especially in complex topics like deep science, medicine or similar disciplines.

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These are perfect examples of the Dunning Kruger effect, cognitive biases, unconscious beliefs, and unexamined assumptions.  People think they know and understand way more than they actually do. They don’t know what they don’t know so they think they are experts. However, the more they study a subject area, the more they realize the complexities, the nuances and what they don’t understand.  When people realize that they don't know as much as they thought they do, they tend to become much humbler.

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Unfortunately, self-proclaimed expertise is especially true with the subject of consciousness. After all, everyone is conscious and knows what it is like to have conscious experience so why shouldn’t they be self-experts in consciousness?  I guess we can say the same thing about any organ in the body – we all have kidneys so why shouldn’t we all be able to treat kidney disease in anyone? That line of thinking leads me to believe that I shouldn’t need a medical degree and be board certified to treat people with diseases associated with the kidneys.

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As I mentioned before, LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other chatbots are trained by the material that has been previously published and in the public domain including much of what is written by the people (especially journalists and so-called experts who support a particular paradigm) with all the biases mentioned above. AI tools have no understanding or comprehension of what they are reporting on. They offer  just a consensus view (usually with a materialistic perspective) of the learning materials they were trained on.   If the training materials contain misinformation or disinformation or have other biases, or misinterpretations of experimental results, the AI tools won’t recognize it. For subjects that are very complex and nuanced or are controversial like consciousness,  it takes a legitimate subject matter expert to recognize poor, ill formed or inappropriate analysis from LLMs (Large language Models of AI). The old saying from software engineering certainly applies here: “garbage in – garbage out”.

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With regard to reduced brain activity during transpersonal experiences and non-ordinary states of consciousness, Edgar Mitchell, ScD (founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences – IONS)  author of From Outer Space to Inner Space: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds liked to use the example of “stand still surgeries”.  That is the case where people who would ordinarily have inoperable brain tumors or aneurysms have  a very difficult and dangerous surgery. The only way surgery can be performed without the patient bleeding out is to cool the patient’s body temperature (with ice packs) then drain all the blood out of the body. When the EEG cap or probes  show that all brain activity has stopped (e.g. no active metabolism), the surgery can then be performed. After surgery, the blood is returned, the body is warmed to normal temperatures and then it is resuscitated.  Many of these patients report extraordinary states of consciousness after the procedure. How is that possible if the EEG was flat (e.g. showing greatly reduced or minimal brain metabolism) during the procedure?  Physicalists have no answers for that. 

 

Dr. Eban Alexander, a neurosurgeon and was on the faculty of Harvard medical school and author of Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s journey into the Afterlife likes to use the example of terminal lucidity in patients with severe neurological or psychiatric disorders like dementia, stroke, brain tumors, etc. In these cases,  the disease causes the progressive death of neurons and the breakdown of connections between them, resulting in brain atrophy where the breakdown causes large areas of the brain to shrink in size due to the loss of nerve tissue. And, yet, shortly before death these people have a sudden resurgence of cognitive functions where a person who was previously non-verbal, disoriented, or unresponsive regains the ability to speak, recognize loved ones, recall past memories, or even engage in lucid and meaningful conversation.  Dr. Alexander has told me that this is a relatively common experience that is often reported by many neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuroscientists  and people with similar backgrounds and experience in the medical professions.  How is this possible in the physicalist paradigm?

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Bernado Kastrup, PhD, PhD (he has two PhDs) a prolific writer on consciousness, physicalism and alternative theories of consciousness and founder of the Essentia Foundation (www.essentiafoundation.org) likes to use the example of the dangerous “choking game” used by adolescents around the world to achieve non-ordinary states of consciousness. This induces fainting caused by the asphyxiation. In these cases, the blood supply to the brain is blocked in order to achieve these states.  This is a very dangerous game where if it is not done correctly, it can result in death. And, yet, adolescents do it to achieve transpersonal states (with lower brain activity).

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Stan Groff M.D. a psychiatrist with over 60 years of experience in the research of non-ordinary states of consciousness and author of  Healing Our Deepest Wounds: The Holotropic Paradigm Shift introduced us to holotropic breathwork which is a type of hyperventilation where one rebreathes CO2 expelled from the lungs by breathing into and out of a paper bag.  This increases blood alkalinity levels to the point where it constricts blood vessels in the brain (leading to oxygen and glucose deprivation) . And yet, the experience can lead to intense non-local transpersonal experiences. This also happens in other yogic breathing practices (e.g. various forms of meditations)  as well.

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Pilots undergoing G-LOC,G-force (Gravity) induced Loss of Consciousness where blood is forced out of the brain which significantly reduces brain activity. And, yet, these pilots report non-local and transpersonal NDE-like experiences.  Dr. Edgar Mitchell had personal experiences with this one as a navy jet fighter pilot and during his astronaut training (centrifuges).

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Psychedelics also produce intense, non-local, transpersonal experiences. The physicalist position includes the assumption that psychedelics excited parts of the brain correlated with these mystical experiences. Subsequent studies have shown significant decreases in blood flow during them which reduces brain activity. The intensity of the experience was inversely proportional to the magnitude of blood flow.  This is reported by Christof Koch, PhD, a brain and consciousness researcher, in his book “Then I am Myself the World” where he reports on his own experiences with psychedelics. Christof was the chief scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Sciences in Seattle, WA.  That institution now has over 750 PhDs doing research on brain science and consciousness studies.

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Bernado Kastrup’s book on “Why Materialism is Baloney” also lists many of the experiences mentioned above plus several other several others as well. Transpersonal experiences that reduce brain activity are backed up by peer reviewed research like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), acquired savant syndrome (exceptional abilities caused by damage due to brain trauma), Psychography, NDEs, and even ancient Greek practices that produce altered states.

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The latter was practiced by Raymond Moody, M.D. author of the ground breaking book Life After Life and several others has written about in some of his books on what Moody calls “mirror gazing”.  When asked about this, he explained that he had a special room set up in his home for this purpose where everything was mirrored – the walls, floor and ceiling.  Just by having patients sit quietly in this environment (with eyes open), the effect induced non-ordinary states of consciousness through deterioration and reduction of brain function.

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Several of Bernado Kastrup’s books describes all these plus several others and also includes several other examples where brain activity is reduced and yet transpersonal experiences occur – an impossibility from a physicalist perspective.  Dr. Kastrup also describes the materialist objections stating everything from “they are all illusions” or “they weren’t real” or “they just couldn’t have happened” or they happen “when the brain is rebooting itself”.  He does an excellent job in answering these objections (with peer reviewed references). I suggest reading several of his books for more details.  Many of these arguments are summarized in his recent book “Analytical Idealism in a Nutshell”.

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Similar investigations are reported in  Dr Federico Faggin’s book Irreducible and in books by Donald Hoffman, PhD The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth form Our Eyes. For a popular book on recent explorations into consciousness studies, see Michael Pollan’s book A World Appears or Dr. Tony Nadler’s book Consciousness is All There Is. There are many other recent books that can be mentioned here but I think you get my point – the energy is building for a change in paradigms when it comes to the nature of consciousness.

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One final point on Dr. Kastrup. He used to participate in many debates and discussions with materialists on materialism vs. idealism.  Many of these debates have been uploaded on YouTube. In the last few years, most materialists will no longer debate with him because he usually wins all of the debates with his powerful arguments.  He usually destroys their positions (and their credibility) by offering peer reviewed empirical evidence, uses logic and reasoning and exposes their hidden assumptions, biases, mis-interpretations and contradictions in their arguments.

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There is much more that could have been included above (like the latest findings from Quantum Field Theory, NDEs, other mystical experiences or Psi phenomena) but what is the point? We would just be reiterating the works of many credentialed and expert researchers with more breadth and depth of expertise than me on these subjects. Excellent references include the books edited by Edward Kelly:  “Consciousness Unbound”, “Beyond Physicalism” and “Irreducible Mind”. Each  book contains many papers authored by subject matter experts. These books go into great depth  on many aspects of the state-of-the-art in consciousness studies.  All of them argue against Physicalism.

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Everything outlined above points to the fact that experience, or phenomenal consciousness, happens outside the brain and that the brain acts as a filter for consciousness not the creator of it. (Dr. Edgar Mitchell liked to call the brain a reducing valve for consciousness instead of a filter for it).    There are other  similar arguments that can be made about where memories are stored (e.g. outside the brain – only access takes place within it) but we will save that one for another day. 

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What these new theories of consciousness suggest is that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality. We may live in a sea of consciousness, not one created by our brain’s internal electro-chemical processes,  but one that may be tied to a substrate that is the basis for all conscious experience that permeates everything. Our brain may just be acting a filer or reducing valve for that Universal Consciousness and one that creates all of our conscious experience.

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Stay tuned for a future discussion on alternative theories  of consciousness including the one supported by Dr. Bernado Kastrup called Analytic Idealism. The implications are enormous – like the fact that the fundamental aspect of our consciousness, our experiences and are memories are not lost at bodily death. In the interim see also the course on consciousness studies on our YouTube channel and its associated PowerPoint presentation.