Consciousness: the very essence of your experience, the rich tapestry of thoughts, emotions, and sensations that define your life. How can something so vivid and immediate emerge from a grey, jelly-like organ encased in your skull?
This is arguably one of the most profound questions facing modern science. Our brains house nearly 100 billion neurons, each forming up to 10,000 connections with its neighbors—yielding a staggering ten trillion nerve connections. But as impressive as this complexity is, it still doesn’t tell us how subjective experiences arise.
We’ve mapped brain activity, connected neural firing to behavior, and uncovered links between specific brain regions and emotions like fear or joy. Yet none of this explains the “hard problem” of consciousness: why these neural signals are accompanied by subjective experiences. Why does electrical activity in the hypothalamus result in the feeling of hunger, or in the visual cortex produce the perception of red?
The deeper we probe into this enigma, the more we encounter the limits of traditional scientific tools. Consciousness challenges our standard methods not just because it is complex but because it is fundamentally unobservable. You can observe someone’s brain waves or behavior, but you can’t directly see their thoughts or emotions. This isn’t like studying electrons or black holes, where indirect evidence can suffice. Consciousness is a first-person phenomenon, known only through direct experience.
Here’s where things get interesting: what if our very framework for studying the world—the scientific method itself—was never designed to tackle consciousness?
A System Not Built for the Job
Modern science owes much to Galileo Galilei, a founding figure who revolutionized our understanding of the physical world. But Galileo made a critical decision that continues to shape science today. He separated the world into two realms: the quantitative, which science could measure and predict (like mass, motion, or distance), and the qualitative, which he deemed subjective and relegated to the realm of consciousness. Colors, sounds, and emotions were deemed secondary qualities—real to the experiencer but not inherent in the physical world.
This separation worked wonders for physics, engineering, and biology, enabling us to manipulate and predict the physical world with stunning precision. But it left consciousness outside the domain of science. Ever since, researchers have tried to force consciousness into this quantitative framework, treating it as something that can be reduced to brain processes. The result? A growing library of correlations but no true explanation for why the subjective experience exists at all.
This isn’t just an academic puzzle; it reveals a profound blind spot in our worldview. If our tools and assumptions exclude consciousness by design, how can we hope to understand it?
Bridging the Gap: Consciousness and the Nature of Matter
To move forward, we might need to rethink not just consciousness but the very nature of reality. Here’s where the ideas of philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Arthur Eddington come into play. They argued that physical science doesn’t actually tell us what matter is.
Take an electron. Physics can describe its mass, charge, and behavior—how it resists acceleration or interacts with other particles. But these descriptions are purely external; they tell us nothing about the electron’s “intrinsic nature”—what it is in itself.
Russell and Eddington proposed an intriguing solution: what if consciousness fills this gap? Instead of thinking of consciousness as something that arises from matter, what if consciousness is a fundamental aspect of matter itself?
This idea, known as panpsychism, suggests that everything in the universe has an inner, subjective aspect—however simple or rudimentary it may be. For humans, this inner aspect is our rich conscious experience. For simpler organisms, it might be far less complex, and for particles, it could be unimaginably basic. But the key insight is this: consciousness isn’t an add-on; it’s woven into the fabric of reality.
A Radical Shift
Panpsychism might sound like mysticism, but it’s gaining traction among serious scientists and philosophers. Unlike older spiritual interpretations, this “new wave” of panpsychism sticks firmly to a materialist framework. There’s no need for a soul or supernatural forces—just matter, described from two perspectives.
From the outside, science describes matter in terms of behavior: forces, interactions, and measurable properties. From the inside, matter experiences consciousness, however faintly. This dual-aspect approach neatly sidesteps the dualism of mind and body, avoiding the pitfalls of treating consciousness as a separate, immaterial thing.
Critics might balk at the idea of conscious electrons, but think about it this way: we already accept that consciousness comes in degrees. Humans experience consciousness at a high level, while animals have simpler forms, and simpler organisms even less so. It’s not a stretch to imagine that, as complexity decreases, consciousness doesn’t disappear but fades into simpler and simpler forms.
Implications for Science and Beyond
If we take panpsychism seriously, it transforms not just our understanding of consciousness but our entire scientific worldview. Suddenly, consciousness isn’t an anomaly or an epiphenomenon—it’s a cornerstone of reality. This perspective opens up new questions:
- If consciousness is fundamental, how does it influence the physical world?
- Could the inner experiences of matter at small scales play a role in phenomena like quantum mechanics?
- How might this view change the way we think about life, death, and the interconnectedness of all things?
Panpsychism also challenges the reductionist tendency to break things down into smaller parts in search of answers. It encourages a more holistic approach, seeing the universe not as a collection of isolated objects but as a web of interconnected, conscious processes.
A New Paradigm
Does panpsychism solve the “hard problem” of consciousness? Not entirely—but it offers a promising framework where none existed before. Traditional science gives us correlations between brain activity and experience but no explanation for why they occur. Dualism splits reality into two incompatible domains. Panpsychism, by contrast, unites mind and matter into a single, coherent picture.
Of course, there are challenges. Panpsychism can’t be tested in the traditional sense, since consciousness is inherently unobservable. But that doesn’t mean it’s unscientific. Instead, we might evaluate it through inference: which theory best explains the data and fits with the rest of our scientific knowledge? By this measure, panpsychism is compelling.
Consciousness: The Revolution Ahead
We are on the cusp of a revolution in how we understand consciousness—one that may redefine science itself. The current approach, while powerful, hits a wall when faced with the subjective nature of experience. To move forward, we need to expand our framework, embracing ideas like panpsychism that challenge conventional boundaries.
This isn’t just about solving an intellectual puzzle; it’s about deepening our understanding of what it means to exist. If consciousness is fundamental, then we are not isolated beings trapped in a mechanical universe. We are participants in a reality that is alive with awareness, connected in ways we are only beginning to glimpse.
As we push the edges of science and philosophy, we may find that consciousness isn’t just something we have—it’s something we are. And that realization could transform not only how we see the world but how we live within it.
Dive deeper on the nature of our current moment via the Collective Evolution Show with Joe Martino. From identifying the collective challenges we face, to exploring the solutions that will help us through the current shift in consciousness we are experiencing, the first 8 episodes of the CE Podcast venture through these questions and topics.
Check them out below.
Ep. 1 | Humanity’s Predicament
Ep. 3 | Sensemaking, Fake News & Censorship
Ep: 4 | Social Media, Desensitization, Cultural Decline
Ep. 5 | Trauma, Embodiment & Being
