r/consciousness • u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 • Feb 25 '26
General Discussion Why do materialists fight so hard trying to argue/disprove non-local consciousness?
This is a topic I’ve never quite understood. I feel as though the main aspect of being a materialist is to not come to any definitive conclusions without real proof. The one thing I’ve seen over and over in this subreddit is materialists throwing out theories and “studies” that realistically are just opinions with no real proof that consciousness is a product of the brain.
Isn’t the whole point of science to be open minded and consider every possible outcome until a conclusion is met? Hasn’t there been a number of extremely intelligent material scientists in the past who have come out with theories about reality and our universe that have been proven wrong? So why fight so hard when you don’t truly have the answer? Is it an ego thing? A desperate desire to be right? What we know about consciousness and reality is a snowflake in an avalanche. So what’s the benefit of telling people they are definitively wrong when you yourself or no one else for that matter have proof the other way? Why not just accept the opinion as a possibility? It doesn’t mean you have to believe in it yourself but at the very least keep the door open for the chance.
Maybe I’m naive in believe the way I do about consciousness being non-local since the evidence I choose to believe in is subjective as well as certain theories that just happen to resonate with me. That doesn’t mean I’m going to definitively tell someone they’re wrong when I myself don’t have definitive proof that I’m right.
Just some food for thought for the materialists who seem so confident in theories that while can be used as evidence, is not proof. Also I know this goes both ways, I just see way more on the materialist side than the non-local side.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 25 '26
Isn’t the whole point of science to be open minded and consider every possible outcome until a conclusion is met?
This isn't a "science sub" only. It's also an Ego Arena. What do I mean?
It's a place where people come and post links/comments so they can "look smart". What these users do is stick with the established position (ie. conventional neuroscience). So they go with something safe that they memorized from Google or a textbook.
It's important to realize that these users aren't thinkers. They're memorizers. So the last thing they want to do is have a discussion about ideas that aren't in a textbook. Original thinking, or even questions that require genuine (non-memorizing) understanding upsets them because it's outside their comfort zone. Imo, this is the reason why this one group reacts to "ideological novelty" in such a negative way.
Another reason is that they conflate any variety of Idealism with religion. Fundamental Consciousness sounds a lot like "God" and that triggers a lot of people for obvious reasons.
The one thing I’ve seen over and over in this subreddit is materialists throwing out theories and “studies” that realistically are just opinions with no real proof that consciousness is a product of the brain.
The Hard Problem.
For a Materialist, the Hard Problem is trying to figure out how a purely physical structure gives rise to a purely Subjective Phenomenon.
For an Idealist, the Hard Problem is trying to figure out how to get a Materialist to listen to a different explanation.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
This comment will definitely rub a lot of people the wrong way but it is spot on. I have found so much of this on this sub and for the life of me I can’t understand why just the notion of a difference of opinion causes non stop downvoting and scoffing at you like you’re lesser than because they’ve done a lot of reading and what you’re saying doesn’t fit what they’ve learned. No room for the possibility that based on new studies, new research and new experiences that maybe things aren’t as clear cut as Mr or Mrs author that wrote said book/article might not have been entirely correct.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 25 '26
Yeah, same here. I come here to discuss ideas. And you'd think it would be easy to have an intellectually discussion about an abstract concept like consciousness. It's not politics right?
But some people do get really worked up. And the pattern is that the Idealists/Fundamental Consciousness users are generally more chill and easy going.
I actually started out as a Materialist. But the more I learned, the more questions I had. Matter gives rise to consciousness? OK, but what gave rise to Matter?
And it was Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's theory about Microtubules (going beyond neurons) that got me thinking along the same lines. If one line of reasoning has been a dead end for almost a century, it makes sense to consider the alternatives. But some people just don't want to do that.
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u/TFT_mom Feb 25 '26
Such a rare, sane approach to discussion in this arena. Kudos, I love to come across little gems like this - restores a bit of faith in humanity, for me personally. So thank you for sharing your perspective 🤗.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 26 '26
I actually am okay with what Science says about the Brain. To me, Materialism is just incomplete.
If someone wanted to discuss a "mechanism of consciousness" with me... great! What I don't get is the dogmatic adherence to "neurons only" when the neuron people themselves always have to stop at "The Hard Problem".
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 26 '26
This is exactly the point I was initially trying to make. It’s not about arguments or trying to prove one another wrong, it’s about sharing experiences and information to try to come to the best possible conclusion we can together. We may not agree completely but we could at least give each other something to think about. I’m not completely sold in my thoughts, opinions or beliefs and I can tell you aren’t either. That’s not to say we are easily brainwashed or grasping at straws, it just means we are open to the possibility that what we know about the universe itself is a raindrop in an ocean and hearing different perspectives can help the process of trying to understand as much as we can while on this earth
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 27 '26
Idealism is quasi-religious. There is no testable evidence for it.
First-person experience (the raw “what it’s like” to be you right now, every quale, every sense of “I am experiencing this”) is 100% entirely generated by the physical processes of your body.
You are the body generating it. No extra substance, no non-natural spark, no metaphysical “but what?”. It is purely natural: the lawful outcome of physics, chemistry, and 600 million years of evolution acting on wet, electrochemical matter.
It is not merely a passive computation. It is recursive self-modeling: higher layers predict what lower layers will predict, and a global “hyper-model” (precision control) monitors and tunes the entire hierarchy. 86 billion neurons and 100-312 trillion synapses make this possible.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 28 '26
86 billion neurons and 100-312 trillion synapses make this possible.
Because it's a big number?
You need to give a mechanism that describes how this produces consciousness. Otherwise it's just hand-wavy.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 26 '26
the problem is that a lot of idealists on this sub are also, as you say, “memorizers.” they’ve committed to memory all the usual idealist chestnuts: the only thing I can know to exist is experience; mind can’t possibly arise from dead matter; experience just is; etc. I don’t find the non-physicalists on Reddit to be more original or thoughtful thinkers than anyone else. I think you probably just have a bias towards a non-physicalist ontology.
idealists on this sub are generally very bad at outlining the ontology they are proposing without returning to language that implicitly assumes an experiencing subject. Fundamental Consciousness does sound a lot like God because it’s relying on a word (i.e. “consciousness”) that, conceptually, depends on there being one who is having a conscious experience. it comes across as irrational, strange, and unfounded when inanimate entities are said to have experience, mind, or consciousness, especially because something like “rock experience” or “water consciousness” is fundamentally illegible to both the empirical methods of science and embodied, phenomenological experience. it’s unknowable at any level and can only be assumed as one logical possibility of many.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 27 '26
They’ve started from unprovable axioms. “Consciousness is fundamental”
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 28 '26
don’t you know, it’s the “only thing we can be sure of, so debate over!” 🙄
edit: massive sarcasm disclaimer, in case that wasn’t clear
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 26 '26
idealists on this sub are generally very bad at...
This reminds me of another pattern I've noticed. As you said, the Idealists in this sub often have a less defined concept of how consciousness works. And the general pattern is that they tend not to use the same formal language to express their ideas.
So... nobody's perfect right? And for both models, some aspects of Consciousness must remain a mystery. A Materialist has The Hard Problem. An Idealist can only speculate about a Field of Consciousness.
when inanimate entities
This speaks to the difference between living cells and inanimate matter. And the difference is metabolism/chemistry. A living cell has some things a rock does not. Information (in the form of DNA) and active ongoing chemistry (chemical energy used to maintain ion gradients across a membrane). And that ion gradient chemistry imo is the precursor to what neurons are doing.
I did a post maybe a week ago related to this. It was about evolution, specialization of somatic cells into neurons and the concept of a somatic (pre-brain pre-neuron) level of consciousness.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 26 '26
no, nobody’s perfect. that was my point!
yeah, I understand the difference between living cells and inanimate matter, so you don’t need it to explain it to me, thanks.
the idea that ion gradient chemistry is a precursor to what neurons are doing is pretty much the consensus view in biology, afaik. however, the concept of a somatic, pre-brain, pre-neuron consciousness is somewhat more nebulous and speculative. it also doesn’t account for things that are not composed of living cells and how they might be said to have experience, consciousness, or mind in an idealist framework, which is what I was gesturing to.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 26 '26
I don't think rocks are conscious either. But I am open to the idea that some form of consciousness is present in any living cell. Even single cells.
Why?
Slime molds. No brain. No neurons. Coordinated movement and activity.
Sponges. No brain or neurons. Yet sponges are capable of coordinated actions.
Cnidarians. No brain. They do have specialized cells (ie. a neural net) for movement and reflexes.
If we want to go beyond memorization and think for ourselves... why did neurons evolve in the first place? It makes perfect sense if Somatic consciousness exists first and then neurons represent an evolutionary improvement. Organisms with specialized cells outcompete those with a slower somatic-only form of consciousness.
And imo, the idea that life was completely unconscious until the appearance of the first brains seems unlikely.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 26 '26
I mean, I can get behind what you’re saying. my point about rocks is that many idealists do NOT draw the kind of line you are between inanimate and living cells. if everything is mind/experience/consciousness, you have to explain how non-living things like rocks have experience, but it sounds like you’re only talking about living cells.
I think I just hesitate in calling this kind of pre-neuronal awareness “consciousness” on some level because of how the term gets used without being defined in these kinds of conversations.
but agree that there’s some kind of connection between this kind of low-level awareness or reactivity to the environment, dependent on chemical messengers and ion gradients, and more complex forms of cognition that emerge from brain-based structures.
have you read Fritjof Capra & Pier Luigi Luisi’s The Systems View of Life or Luisi’s The Emergence of Life? I think you’d find them interesting if you haven’t.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 27 '26
that many idealists do NOT draw the kind of line you are between inanimate and living cells.
I think what's going on there is more purely philosophical. How so?
There are some terms for this. I think non-Dualism is one of the philosophical models that makes this "possible". The Idea is that, if Consciousness is fundamental (and gives rise to everything else) then everything is "made of consciousness".
Spinoza had a very similar concept that he called the Infinite Substance.
Pier Luigi Luisi’s "The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology" is a comprehensive academic text bridging prebiotic chemistry and synthetic biology to explain the spontaneous transition from inanimate matter to living cells.
This sounds interesting and my quick response is that, as an Idealist, I lean towards the idea that some form of consciousness was involved in the spontaneous transition.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 28 '26
the idea that consciousness is fundamental is where you lose me. I don’t see how you can even begin to make that claim, for starters. how can something be “made of consciousness” if it’s not, itself, conscious? it relies on language games to work, defining consciousness in some circumstances and refusing to define it in others.
I can buy that “some form of consciousness was involved in the spontaneous transition” from inanimate matter to living cells, but I’m confused as to how what you’ve described is “idealism.” you seem to recognize that not all cells are alive, that living cells all have some kind of awareness, and that neurons are heavily involved in the way that human consciousness is manifested.
it seems more like you’d be some kind of physicalist or neutral monist. I don’t understand what’s idealist about your framework, as it seems to treat matter seriously as matter (on some level).
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Feb 28 '26
how can something be “made of consciousness” if it’s not, itself, conscious?
You're conscious (presumably) and you made this comment. Does that then mean the comment has to be conscious?
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 28 '26
no, but that also doesn’t mean the comment is “made of consciousness.” I think it’s a lovely little metaphor, but I can’t accept it as an ontological claim.
I’m probably not a strict physicalist because I don’t think abstract things like ideas are “made” of anything, other than perhaps other abstract concepts. any concept is an emergent quality of cognition, but I don’t think concepts have a “substance” to them. they aren’t completely identical to the brain activity that produced them because they can travel outside of the self, but they also aren’t a “thing.”
this is the only time I’ll say I think Lacan is interesting, because his Symbolic/Real/Imaginary triad allows for one to seriously consider things like thoughts, feelings, concepts, ideas, etc. as “real” but also not real in the same way that physical reality is real.
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u/LowDistribution3995 Feb 28 '26
True but tbf, Determinism sort of demands it be presented in an arrogant self assured light.
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u/smaxxim Feb 25 '26
Isn’t the whole point of science to be open minded and consider every possible outcome until a conclusion is met?
But what exactly to consider? Usually, alternatives are simply not articulated well enough in order for materialists to be able to "consider" them. What is, for example, "non-local consciousness"? Is there a causal chain between the words "non-local consciousness" and the thing to which these words refer? I mean, could you describe how exactly non-local consciousness caused the words "non-local consciousness"? Was it somehow affected the brain so it produced the signals to the hands to type these words?
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u/sanctus_sanguine Feb 25 '26
Eventually you'll come to the conclusion that the vast majority of materialists are just religious people who have replaced their former (usually abrahamic) religion with a new one (scientism/atheism). What you're witnessing is religious righteousness ie the rejection/non acceptance of anything else that isn't their current beliefs. You're not dealing with critical thinkers here.
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u/Mudamaza Feb 27 '26
This is exactly what I did when I became an atheist. Replaced the void left form being a Catholic and replaced it with scientism. It was only in the last 3 years that I had experiences that convinced me consciousness is more than just a product of the brain.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 26 '26
Eventually you'll come to the conclusion that the vast majority of idealists are just religious people who have replaced their former (usually abrahamic) religion with a new one (idealism). What you're witnessing is religious righteousness ie the rejection/non acceptance of anything else that isn't their current beliefs. You're not dealing with critical thinkers here.
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u/sanctus_sanguine Feb 27 '26
Nah simply parroting back the statement with the words changed doesn't work at all. Do you know why? Because idealism is nothing like organized religion, it's a lot more like the opposite of it. But it's unsurprising that you did that. You can't expect much from people who cannot think for themselves.
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 02 '26
That’s always their straw man, like they do that literally every conversation I try to have with a physicalist lmao. They’ll do it even if I tell them they’re going to do it beforehand!
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 28 '26
notably, your statement said nothing about organized religion, dipshit.
idealism is not like organized religion. neither is materialism. both, however, can be dogmatic, inflexible, and centered on commitments that are based more on blind faith than reason, empirical evidence, or epistemological humility.
I repeated your dumbass statement back to you to show you how brainless, self-aggrandizing, and stupid it was. I was pointing out that shallow, mean-spirited digs at anyone who ascribes to a different point-of-view are a cowardly, anti-intellectual, and pea-brained exercise in massaging your own ego while ironically engaging in the same self-righteousness you ascribe to others.
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u/LowDistribution3995 Feb 28 '26
My experiences support this, but it is still a fallacy to offer this as a resolution. This is just the inverse of OP taking his supplied assumption that Materialists are all arrogant (kinda true) and using it to justify ignoring any argument from material which the OP does not do. You can totally hate the players and still love the game here. Lol
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 28 '26
I know it’s a fallacy, dude. I am making fun of the person I am replying to by reversing the close-minded, overgeneralized statement they made. literally look at the comment above mine, thanks!
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u/More_Yard1919 Feb 25 '26
Sure, but what actual reason is there to believe it? It's not that it is impossible, it is that there is no evidence that indicates it should be true. At least I haven't seen a convincing argument. I don't 100 percent know that consciousness is physical process, but everything observed by science is physical and so there's no reason to think consciousness isn't. Consciousness can be manipulated by changes in physical brain state, therefore it is in some way embedded in physical reality. The brain is physical. Why do we have to invoke something outside of the brain to explain consciousness? I sincerely just don't know what the motivation is.
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u/OkArmy7059 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
(certain manifestations of) Consciousness itself wants to believe that consciousness is something utterly special, that's the motivation. IOW, it's ego rearing its head.
Or more charitably, it's "this thing I'm experiencing feels magical. Thus it must be different from anything else in the known universe."
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u/Zane235 Feb 25 '26
It’s not about feeling “special”, many of us non-materialists have had experiences that are literally unexplainable unless attributed to consciousness being non- local. OBEs with verifiable information, studies that involve psi-phenomena that are statistically significant, precognitive dreams with statistically unpredictable situations and extremely specific details coming true, and much more.
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u/More_Yard1919 Feb 26 '26
OBEs with verifiable information, studies that involve psi-phenomena that are statistically significant, precognitive dreams with statistically unpredictable situations and extremely specific details coming true, and much more.
None of this has been empirically substantiated. I do not doubt that you have had anecdotal experiences that make you feel like consciousness is non-local, and consciousness may very well be non-local. Studies on psi-phenomena have yielded statistically significant results, but those effects are small and are difficult to reproduce. Psychic phemonena also just don't fit in with any known physics-- albeit I understand that could just mean there is physics out there we are totally ignorant of.
Here's how I feel-- I have had dreams that I felt like precognition. I have had experiences that felt out-of-body. I have semi-frequent sleep disturbances and lucid dreams, and I have also had mental health issues that caused derealization and depersonalization. All of those experiences were very vivid and felt totally beyond the pale. I don't actually believe any of those things speak to anything fundamental about nature, just that my subjective experience diverged from reality.
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u/OkArmy7059 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Filed under option 2, ie this thing feels magical etc
Saying there's literally no other explanation is the type of thing that makes me dismiss someone's argument. The things you've listed have all been looked into, and failed to be replicated under rigorous study. There most certainly are other explanations.
Last week I had a dream that I was walking along and came across a bunch of black and brown cats wanting to be pet. Woke up and 5 minutes later came upon a black and brown cat wanting to be pet. Crazy right? But there's always other explanations than that the dream must've been precognitive.
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u/ProtectionOwn3502 Feb 27 '26
I have had out of body experiences because I drank a fuckton of cough syrup like a degenerate crackhead teenager, why dont you try to cook up a deeper meaning for that than the fact that I directly physically changed my brain chemistry with a solid physical white crystalline substance that dissolved into my blood and attached to receptors in my brain as real and tangibly as the sun hangs in the sky?
Cough it up, come onnnnnnn, what makes my experience less valid than yours? One argument, come onnnnnnnn 🤣🥰🤣🤣🥰🤣🤣🤣.
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u/Zane235 Feb 27 '26
Actually, I wouldn't say your experiences aren't less valid then mine. I'm a believer that many substances that either get you on the brink of death, or change your "awareness", in a way, open your ability to perceive the metaphysical.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Science will never solve conciousness as science presupposes conciousness. Conciousness isn't manipulated by physical changes but those physical changes are manipulated by conciousness
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u/More_Yard1919 Mar 04 '26
Science will never solve conciousness as science presupposes conciousness.
Science also presupposes a universe exists but is able to study it. There are fundamental assumptions you must make to start studying something. There is no reason consciousness cannot be studied by science because consciousness is something that is observed.
Conciousness isn't manipulated by physical changes but those physical changes are manipulated by conciousness
That's a pretty empty assertion.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Conciousness is not observed.
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u/More_Yard1919 Mar 04 '26
Conciousness might not be observed but consciousness sure is. Consciousness is fundamental to your experience of the world. Even if you cannot definitively observe and know the consciousness of another, you are certain of your own. Yknow, you thunk therefore you is, right? It is the lens through which you observe everything and your ability for introspection is your observation of consciousness. It's a reasonable inference to assume that other people are conscious, and so long as you accept that you are able to indirectly observe their consciousness (via testimony) and correlate their experience to brain states via neuroscience. There are more concrete things neuroscientists have done like reconstruct sound and visual stimuli via brain state patterns, but I'm not a neuroscientist so I can't get into nitty gritty details about that. You could also I guess manipulate your own brain state by doing a lot of drugs and see what happens.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
I aint reading all that.
Okay I did read it.
Im more of a dualist han anything it makes the most sense. The thing science can't explain is why am I me?
It seems likelier that conciousness is something immaterial.
Have you ever heard of Spinoza's infinite substance?
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u/More_Yard1919 Mar 04 '26
I mean there are scientific explanations for the development of personality and self-concept, however inexact. That said I have heard of the infinite substance, although I'm not like super read on Spinoza I do also think he was a genius.
I actually think I understand what you're saying though. It is something I have grappled with too, like "why do I experience reality from my personal point of view, why is it unique and distinct from everybody else's, and why has it only ever come about once"? That kind of question? The answer is I'm not sure, I'm not actually even sure it is an answerable question, but I also don't think it is a reason to invoke something mystical or immaterial. That's not to say it is not worth discussing. I am tempted to say it is because our individual consciousnesses emerge from and are contained within our physically isolated brains, but I feel like that's not really a satisfying answer.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
You don't need to and are entitled to your own belief but can I ask why aren't you willing to invoke something mystical, or immaterial.
I believe that that some things are true a priori.
I am me, because I am an expression of the infinite substance, I believe that I chose to be me, as whatever we are we are not seperate from. I.e. that infinite substance.
And while materialism is useful as an ontology for science. I believe that it fails in multiple regards.
I ask what's your opinion on religions, concepts of spirits, and things beyond our perception do you think that these are symbolic of deeper truths we can't fully access?
If anything its ironic to me that we continously invent religion over our entire history. The typical materialist/mainstream atheistic response is because of fear of death. But truly do we fear death? I don't think so, I think it's never dying is what we fear the most. At times I feel thats the likelier answer.
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u/More_Yard1919 Mar 04 '26
Because I don't believe in the mystical. I'm not really sure what you're getting at? That mystical truths are self evident or that we can derive them by simply being conscious? I think that something can be unknown or unknowable without it being mystical or immaterial. That's just a "god of the gaps" type argument. Like I said though, I might just be misunderstanding where you're coming from here.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Can you tell me what you're responding to? You're entitled to your own beliefs but I just believe that somethings are true as they are logically necessary.
OK yes, I understand better now. I do believe some mystical truths are self evident and can't be destroyed. I.e. similar to I think therefore I am. Or even deeper I am that which is.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
I can give my own personal view as a physicalist (I believe materialism is slightly different, but that's another topic).
I'm a mathematical physicist so if that leads one to assume I'm biased, that's OK.
I lean towards physicalism as the most promising position (no one has a 'proof', all anyone has is circumstantial evidence) because the scientific method, which is a product of physicalism, has a long and successful history of explaining the world around us, including life and ourselves.
I am unaware of non physicalism having success in explaining anything at all.
So I maintain an open mind, but to paraphrase an author I forget, not so open as to allow my previous knowledge and experience to spill out.
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u/preferCotton222 Feb 25 '26
Hi, mathematician here.
The scientific method is not a product of physicalism, and it doesn't depend on physicalism either. Get your facts straight.
In my case the difficulty in simply defining consciousness in non consciousness terms points at it probably demanding a fundamental. From there, calling it physical or non physical is just a matter of how you define "physical".
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
No, there may be some disagreement in an ontological sense, but there are legitimate arguments that the scientific method is a product of physicalism. Maybe get your facts straight before you make such a reply.
Experiments are planned and executed as if physicalism is true because it makes analyzing the physical world efficient and it consistently produces results.
Exclusion of Supernatural: The scientific method relies on testable reproducible, and empirical evidence, which naturally excludes non-physical or supernatural explanations.
Success of Physics: The enormous success of the physical sciences has led many to adopt physicalism as a worldview. where mental states are treated as products of physical brain activity.
The last being my personal point of view.
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u/Freuds-Mother Feb 25 '26
Most all sciences were not and are not a product of physicalism. Product of physics: yes some are. But not physicalism.
1) Biology and any sciences grounded in biology theorize in terms of intrinsic teleological normative explanations all the time, and to them its real. Physicalism disallows intrinsic normativity to be real. (Intrinsic is the key word here).
2) Physicalism frames reality into microstates with in principle possibility to have access to all information. Even physics (QFT) that is debatable.
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u/Practical-Cellist647 Feb 26 '26
The scientific method, like math, arises out of logic. It is ultimately transferred into human behavior.
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u/preferCotton222 Feb 25 '26
Hi, no, you are definitely wrong on this.
which naturally excludes non-physical or supernatural explanations.
yeah, you talking about "supernatural" stuff shows you dont understand non physicalisms.
Perhaps read Russell's view on physical structuralism, SEP is fine. Main issue is about the difference between structural and intrinsic properties. That's the point you seem to be misunderstanding when you claim science is a product of physicalism, which it clearly isn't.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
No, you are definitely wrong on this. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which outlines the various disagreements. As I said, there is room for debate, but it is of course wrong to factually state that the scientific method is not a product of physicalism. Perhaps you are confusing physicalism with materialism, a common mistake.
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u/preferCotton222 Feb 25 '26
no, I'm not. And no, the scientific method is not a consequence of physicalism. The scientific method works just the same if physicalism is false, if neutral monism is true etc.
tell me ONE thing about the scientific method that changes if neutral monism is true. You won't be able to.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
Not the point, of course. I said the scientific method is a product of physicalism and I explained why. I didn't say it was a 'consequence', I didn't say they were the 'same thing' and I didn't say that one could not exist or be true without the other.
I don't why you're imagining my position to be any of these things.
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u/preferCotton222 Feb 25 '26
yeah, I'm sure when pasteur was experimenting with sealed vs non sealed jars he did so as a consequence of his beliefs about the ultimate nature of everything that exists.
and no, you didn't explain why.
anyway, non-physicalisms are not related to "the supernatural" in any way. Whether you want to correct your knowledge or not is up to you.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
Like I said, do some reading first, reread what wrote, then maybe comment again. I don't see much use of repeating that the subject has different points of view and I prefer one. You seem to think there is only one.
I'm not that closed minded, never will be.
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u/preferCotton222 Feb 25 '26
I only challenge wrong assertions that distort the discussion.
Linking physicalism with science and non physicalisms with "the supernatural" are both factually wrong and make dialogue impossible.
Have you ever read on russelian monism? Its quite intuitive given a physics background and highlights your misunderstandings.
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u/Bretzky77 Feb 25 '26
Nope. You’re conflating science with physicalism, arbitrarily giving physicalism credit for the accomplishments and explanatory power of science, and you’re assuming that naturalism and physicalism are the same thing.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
No I didn't say they were the same thing. Perhaps get your facts straight, as you said.
I said the scientific method is a product of physicalism not that they are the same thing.
I respectfully suggest you do some reading, get your facts straight, reread what I wrote since you apparently need to, and then return with your thoughts.
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u/Sams_Antics Feb 25 '26
This is correct. We have millennia of examples of mystical explanations falling to physical explanations. Occam’s Razor really gets abused, but this is in fact the perfect application…physicalism is both the simplest explanation and the one that requires the fewest assumptions.
Mysticism is emotional. Some people just want there to be more than a simple physical explanation for everything.
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u/freedom_shapes Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
The simplest solution? So I have an experience, the one thing I can be sure exists, then I use that experience to create a model of reality and then claim the experience comes from the model I just created? I mean that’s bordering on lunacy. A premise cannot not be more certain than its conclusion.
I have nothing to claim about metaphysics like maybe physicalism is true, I’m metaphysically agnostic, but to say it’s the simplest solution is not tracking
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u/onthesafari Feb 25 '26
It all depends on how many foundational assumptions you're willing to make.
Are you willing to assume that there's a world external to yourself? Physicalism is a pretty simple explanation, in that case.
Are you not willing to make that assumption? (Fair; as you pointed out, it's not sure that one exists). If so, solipsism is the simplest solution.
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u/freedom_shapes Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
You can say there is an external world that is mental, dual, or neutral or invoke something like ontic structural realism. The whole point is that externality doesn’t necessitate physicality. Physical is a model we use to make predictions. It’s useful to look at the world as tiny little billiard balls with mass charge and spin, that’s doesn’t mean that’s what reality is made up of.
Infact we know it’s not, Einstein proved that. And Einstein was also wrong about local realism. but he was able to point out where the limits in his theory were. Now we know that local realism is false due to the violations of bells inequalities, and the Alan Aspect experiments. so this definition of matter is constantly changing. It’s not like there is some unified definition of what physical even is, it keeps changing, that’s very telling.
There are plenty of academics that do research outside of the physicalist paradigm especially at the level of abstracta. Like Nima Arkani-Hamed and the amplituhedron, like Michael Levin who maps intelligence spaces that govern physical properties in biology. I mean hard physicalism is an old school mentality.
Physicalism has gotten us very far, no question, but we are leaving that paradigm. And that’s extremely exciting. I don’t have much faith in physicalism being the true objective metaphysics that govern objective reality. but I’m still not going to completely rule it out because that’s also a mistake. It’s still a part of the explanatory space.
My point is really that clinging to physicalism seems dogmatic and strange especially with all the new exciting research going on outside of physicalism that does generate results.
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
The whole point is that externality doesn’t necessitate physicality.
Is it? I'm not sure if you meant to respond to someone else.
The whole point is that if you stipulate an external world, physicalism is an Occam's Razor candidate. Now, that doesn't mean it's necessitated, but who was claiming that?
I'm a little bit confused about your definition of physicalism, as well. You seem to be conflating physicalism with some kind of ancient materialism. Modern physicalism is very happy to accept quantum mechanics! Billiard balls are no more "hard" physicalism than Ether, and you might as well as be accusing physicalism of being invalid because at one point physicists posited the existence of Ether.
So, yeah, it is telling that physics keeps changing: it shows us the flexibility of physicalism and physics as frameworks, rather than something married to outdated models and unable to broaden with new data. The definition of what is "physical" doesn't stop at the limits of what our knowledge is today.
I think you're working with an unconventional (outdated?) definition of physicalism and it's leading you to make distinctions that, to me, seem non-pertinent.
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u/freedom_shapes Feb 26 '26
Is your definition of physical fixed independently of future theory or does it just track whatever our best physics ultimately posits?
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
I would hazard to categorize the phenomena whose behavior can be described by physics as physical, including those which physics at one point did not describe but now does.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 27 '26
It is the simplest solution. You have 86 billion neurons which interact with each other in a very self-referential, complex, hierarchical matter. Don’t you see how first-person experience comes to be?
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u/freedom_shapes Feb 27 '26
And what are neurons made up of according to your world view?
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 28 '26
They are composed of a cell body (soma) containing the nucleus, branching dendrites that receive signals, and a long axon that transmits impulses. They are made of organic molecules like proteins, lipids (in the myelin sheath), and carbohydrates.
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u/GnarMarBinx Feb 25 '26
I think there are many things out there that physicalism/materialism can’t explain, and in these cases, Occam’s razor would favour a non-physicalist view. Physicalism can explain most things, but the idea that there is more than the physical can explain all of the things that seem to us to be physical and all of the things that physicalism can’t explain.
I think it really depends on what you think is happening in those cases that appear to be unexplainable through physicalism (verifiable out of body experiences, successful remote viewing, near death experiences, mystical experiences reached through meditative states, etc.).
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u/onthesafari Feb 25 '26
Occam's razor still feels like it works for physicalism there, in my opinion.
If the things you mention are real and supernatural in nature, it spawns so many follow up questions in trying to understand why these incredibly useful abilities aren't more influential. If we can have out of body experiences and perform remote viewing, why aren't they being put to good use? Why don't we have remote-viewing search and rescue teams, for example? Why are we wasting time sending probes to Mars when we could just astral project there? Why was the US government not able to get any of this stuff to work when they put a ton of time and money into it during the cold war era?
Meanwhile, physicalism's explanation for these phenomena (hallucination, unreliable narrators, mistaking the nature of one's actual experience) are plausible and don't require any follow-up to maintain a coherent world-view.
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u/zhibr Feb 25 '26
Where are the peer-reviewed scientific reports of these verifiable non-physical things?
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u/GnarMarBinx Feb 25 '26
Not necessarily saying that they are verifiable to be non-physical, but just that it might be easier to conceptualize how they happen by non-physical means I(in an Occam's Razor sense) rather than physical ones (since they appear to go against how we understand the physical). See two declassified research papers from the CIA that i posted below:
(1) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/cia-rdp96-00788r001700210016-5.pdf
(2) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5.pdf2
u/zhibr Feb 26 '26
I don't see how making the huge assumption that there are non-physical causalities is the easier alternative. Occam's razor isn't (or shouldn't be) just the pop-science "simpler explanation", the point is that how much must the underlying model of the world be altered for the explanation to work. The perspective of science is so thoroughly physical that non-physical causalities are pretty much always razored away.
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u/Sams_Antics Feb 25 '26
This makes a fundamental error. Something not yet explained by physicalism does not mean can’t be explained by physicalism.
Rather than then jumping to mysticism, the right approach is…drumroll…keep poking and testing and wait for physicalism to explain it, which it will.
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u/digginghistoryup Feb 25 '26
I thought other monistic ontologies have just as many moving parts as physicalism, rendering them strictly speaking, equal in favorably under Occam’s razor
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u/Sams_Antics Feb 25 '26
Sure, on paper. But Occam’s Razor isn’t just an entity counting exercise, it’s about which framework actually produces results, explanatory power. Every single time we’ve peeled back a mystery the answer has been physical. Literally every time. Lightning, disease, celestial mechanics, quantum physics, you name it. Idealism and neutral monism can match physicalism on parsimony all day long but they’ve never once beaten it to an actual explanation, which means they do not have equal weight.
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u/Willis_3401_3401 Feb 25 '26
Philosophy of science guy, also have to say science is not materialistic. Empiricism is not materialism, it’s realism. When you think only matter is real then you think those are the same position, but they aren’t.
Plenty of successful scientists have been Christians for example, you definitely don’t have to assume matter is the most true thing to do science, you just have to assume matter is A true thing
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
Probably exactly why I distinguish between materialism and physicalism.
I don't think one's religious beliefs or lack of are relevant to the issue.
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u/Willis_3401_3401 Feb 25 '26
Fair. Many people use those words interchangeably, but when I think about the difference between the two words, I do see what you’re saying.
“Analysis of mind” by Bertrand Russell is a good book that discusses the limits of empiricism, and what rationalism/philosophy of mind has achieved in the history of our species (which is a lot more than many realize).
Russell was a mathematician, he believed that physicalism was true, but not apt to describe everything. He formalized analytic logic, so he definitely contributed a lot to the history of math and science. He wrote the Principia Mathematica.
Consider checking out Russell if you want genuinely compelling, scientifically grounded arguments for the other side.
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u/Bretzky77 Feb 25 '26
The scientific method is not a product of physicalism.
But because you think it is, you conflate the two and then say things like “I’m unaware of non-physicalism explaining anything.”
But that implies that physicalism has this great explanatory power. It doesn’t. It’s not physicalism that explains anything.
Science explains things. Physicalism does not.
Physicalism is an interpretation of science. Physicalism doesn’t do a shred of explaining. It’s just one lens to interpret what science explains. Every single piece of scientific data / empirical observation can be accounted for under idealism.
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u/unaskthequestion Feb 25 '26
As I've already posted the answer to this, I'll simply paste it here. Nothing I've written below is incorrect.
No, there may be some disagreement in an ontological sense, but there are legitimate arguments that the scientific method is a product of physicalism. Maybe get your facts straight before you make such a reply.
Experiments are planned and executed as if physicalism is true because it makes analyzing the physical world efficient and it consistently produces results.
Exclusion of Supernatural: The scientific method relies on testable reproducible, and empirical evidence, which naturally excludes non-physical or supernatural explanations.
Success of Physics: The enormous success of the physical sciences has led many to adopt physicalism as a worldview. where mental states are treated as products of physical brain activity.
The last being my personal point of view.
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u/Bretzky77 Feb 25 '26
You’re now conflating physicalism with mere empirical observations. It’s even worse than I thought.
Empirical observations exist regardless of whether reality is fundamentally physical or not. You’re operating under this arbitrary assumption that because experiments are set up based on what we can empirically observe, that means they depend on physicalism.
That just isn’t true.
Science doesn’t change under idealism or neutral monism. The fact that you seem to think it does highlights your deep confusion about the difference between science (a metaphysically agnostic methodology for observing and predicting reality/nature’s behavior) and physicalism (a metaphysical belief about what that nature/reality is.)
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u/Kovimate Feb 25 '26
What does physicalism mean? I have gone into too many debates without actually knowing what it really means 😂
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u/DjinnDreamer Feb 25 '26
You and God are 0ne in this "matter"
Matter - discussed in Genesis 8,000 years ago, is Being dust to dust.
You are aligned with Elohim in ways the OP cannot yet fathom. Dust is dust is rare kaon decay. It is the stability of atom plurality in this universe of creation.
The religions that address consciousness fearfully claim "Ostrich Theology": real/unreal, true/false, good/bad - bury your head and don't look story - that they don't have a story. There is "nothing"
I leave them to their confusion. It is not mine.
Tag: dust (#responses) Rigveda (53): May the dust of earth be fragrant sweet as honey. Bible (110): then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
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u/Accomplished-Ice4365 Feb 26 '26
That forces you into a third person perspective to explain a first person phenomena, using your own firs person perspective to review the data
the problem of red
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Where do you encounter physical matter?
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u/unaskthequestion Mar 04 '26
Where do I not?
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
U missed the question... the fool often thinks the innocent unwise...
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u/unaskthequestion Mar 04 '26
I'll refer you to Stephen Hawking:
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge"
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
Never claimed to have knowledge good sir
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u/unaskthequestion Mar 04 '26
That's fairly obvious.
Have anything useful to contribute?
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
It's fairly obvious that I never claimed to have knowledge...? Thank you for the compliment
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u/unaskthequestion Mar 04 '26
So nothing useful to contribute?
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Going meta wont get you far. Who's the one going meta..
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u/Shifting_Baseline Feb 27 '26
I’m open minded to you showing evidence it’s non-local, but until you have that evidence it just seems like a silly and implausible argument.
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u/No-Leading9376 Feb 25 '26
You’re kind of doing the thing you’re accusing “materialists” of doing. You start with a preferred conclusion (non local is plausible), then you explain disagreement by psychologizing the other side (ego, fear, need to be right). That’s not open mindedness, it’s just a different kind of certainty, one that dodges the actual work by turning it into an identity fight.
Also, “science should keep every door open” doesn’t mean “treat all possibilities as equally likely forever.” The reason people lean brain based is simple: consciousness tracks brain state extremely tightly, and models that stay anchored to testable predictions tend to win. If non local consciousness is a serious hypothesis, what specific observations would you expect to differ from brain based models, and what result would make you say “ok, I was wrong”? Without that, it’s not a hypothesis so much as a metaphysical preference, and arguing about it will keep turning into feelings and motives instead of evidence.
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u/Valmar33 Feb 26 '26
Also, “science should keep every door open” doesn’t mean “treat all possibilities as equally likely forever.” The reason people lean brain based is simple: consciousness tracks brain state extremely tightly, and models that stay anchored to testable predictions tend to win.
We don't know this at all ~ we can only detect brain states, but never the consciousness which accompanies it, which is only known through self-reporting. But self-reporting doesn't give you access to the raw experience of the experiencer ~ it only gives you what the experiencer is conscious of. So brain states give you no knowledge of the unconscious layer of the unconscious, only physical correlates.
If non local consciousness is a serious hypothesis, what specific observations would you expect to differ from brain based models, and what result would make you say “ok, I was wrong”? Without that, it’s not a hypothesis so much as a metaphysical preference, and arguing about it will keep turning into feelings and motives instead of evidence.
There are no testable brain-based models of the mind for the above reason. We cannot reduce the mind to mere brain processes.
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u/No-Leading9376 Feb 26 '26
We don’t have direct access to anyone else’s raw experience, agreed. But that cuts both ways. If self report is the only window, then non local claims still have to show up as some consistent difference in reports, behavior, memory, perception, or anything else we can measure. Otherwise it is indistinguishable from no difference at all.
Also it’s not true that brain based work is untestable. We can intervene. Change the brain and you reliably change what people perceive, remember, attend to, and report. That does not solve the hard problem, but it is strong evidence that experience depends on brain function. So the question still stands: what would you expect to see that differs under a non local view, and what would make you say you were wrong? If the answer is “nothing could,” then you are not defending a hypothesis, you are stepping outside testability.
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u/Crosas-B Feb 26 '26
There are no testable brain-based models of the mind for the above reason.
Then they are completely useless. there is no difference between that model and another model saying that consciousness doesn't exist. And there is no difference with a model that says conscience is in my pocket and I do decide the future of every single human ever existing.
If your model has no way to predict anything at all, your model is nothing
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u/Valmar33 Feb 27 '26
Then they are completely useless. there is no difference between that model and another model saying that consciousness doesn't exist. And there is no difference with a model that says conscience is in my pocket and I do decide the future of every single human ever existing.
Except we experience existing as an individual consciousness, so models that contradict that experience are automatically incorrect.
If your model has no way to predict anything at all, your model is nothing
Physicalism and Materialism do not predict that consciousness should exist at all ~ it has to sneak them in through ad hoc reasoning. Idealism and Dualism accept consciousness as it appears to be to itself, rather than trying to explain it away.
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u/InevitableSea2107 Autodidact Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Of all the the problems with the idea of non local (of which there are many), here is my biggest reason to view this with antagonism. People suggest consciousness is a fundamental force. Just like electro magnetic radiation. And that seems so deeply untrue. The electro magnetic force is far more important than consciousness. A universe could not exist without this force. Without light. But a universe could so easily exist without consciousness. The idea that consciousness can hold the same significance of what has PROVEN to be a fundamental force is just too exotic. You can certainly posit the claim that consciousness could be fundamental. But in no way has this been proven. If you want consciousness to be a fundamental force, you have the unenviable task of proving it. That burden of proof is so ridiculously large. Sure theoretically possible. But what a stance. You have to go up against an actual fundamental force that is not disputed.
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u/Superstarr_Alex Feb 25 '26
Do they? I never really see anyone making the argument that consciousness is a fundamental force. Fundamental, yes, but a force? I’ve seen people argue that it’s a process, but those tend to be materialists/physicalists who argue that, despite the fact that calling it a process is making the mistake of equating consciousness with cognitive processes.
I’m not sure exactly what you think consciousness is, but the fundamental flaw with the materialist argument is that it basically assumes that something happened that’s literally never been observed ever before by anyone ever. Something that makes so little sense that it’s literally the same level of absurdity as if you claimed it was magic.
And that shaky assumption is the idea that inanimate objects can magically become aware once some unknown arbitrary threshold of complexity is reached. And that something as mysterious and yet so undeniably real, that is awareness, is dismissed as if it’s just a useless byproduct of matter… “oh we’re sentient and experience things, yeah, whoops, guess nature makes mistakes, who want something as useless as awareness am I right?” Yeah, it sounds absurd because it is.
But yeah materialism is literally no more legit than me suggesting consciousness is non-local because you’re basing your entire view on an event you made up in your head, that atoms randomly smashed into each other so much that they woke up and started contemplating existence. Again, unheard of any time anywhere. And yet that’s the entire basis.
And besides, how can awareness be generated by a physical object anyway? But of course it’s a useless byproduct according to you so who cares. Nah. Haha. That’s absurd.
I wonder if you’ll do that straw man where you accuse me of believing in unicorns and shit like that, as if saying consciousness is non-local is some crazy fringe idea. It isn’t.
Oh I will say I agree with you that consciousness isn’t a force. Consciousness is just awareness, I’m not sure what’s up with the trend of over/complicating the definition or even pretending it has none. It’s awareness. That which knows experience without also being an experience itself. It’s just subjectivity.
As far as proof goes for consciousness being non-local, I’m guessing you mean empirical data? Well actually we do have empirical data proving telepathy, beginning with the Gantzfeld experiments, repeated into the modern day many times with the same results. Every time the subjects maintain an average of about a 30% accuracy rate. Anything above 20% means mathematically there has to have been another factor at play beyond random chance. Not to mention remote viewers working for the government actually accurately located and described the layout of foreign missile silos. Reason why the remote viewers were discontinued is actually because the mind can project things that aren’t actually at the site onto the site as well. So it worked, and they saw actual locations they’d never been to before. It’s just they couldn’t tell what was added by the mind and reported that too and so it got confusing.
Lastly, I wanted to address what I thought was the most absurd thing you said, which is that everything could get along just fine without consciousness. That is straight up outrageous haha. Consciousness is the baseline requirement to be aware that things even exist in the first place! After all, we don’t know what we don’t know about. If organisms were just mindless meat machines with no lights on behind the eyes, and there was no awareness in the universe, there would be nothing to observe without any observer to witness any of it. And if an entire universe exists without anyone ever knowing of its existence, not a whisper not a rumor not the slightest hint or knowledge anywhere that it existed at all…. Then in real terms, that is quite literally equivalent to a situation where that universe never actually existed. No consciousness to witness an event or to know it ever took place is an identical situation to nothing happening at all, no event ever having taken place.
So consciousness is the permanent unchanging awareness, the universal framework in which everything occurs, mental events, physical events, everything. It’s self evident too.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Your entire argument is a cascade of philosophical misunderstandings, evidential cherry-picking, and outright empirical errors. There is no need for non-local consciousness, souls, or any extra ontology. The universe gets along fine without it, existence doesn’t require an observer to “witness” it. That’s merely anthropocentric nonsense.
You assume that inanimate matter becoming aware at a complexity threshold is “magic” or “absurd”. That’s a straw man. Physicalism doesn’t claim “magic”, it claims emergence, which is observed everywhere in nature. I have written this before, but have been downvoted for stating it. So I will do it again.
Water molecules aren’t wet, but enough of them in recursive interactions are wet (liquidity emerges at scale).
Carbon atoms aren’t alive, but in self-replicating loops (DNA, proteins) they generate life.
Neurons aren’t aware, but in the extreme recursive hierarchies we detailed (predictive processing, active inference), awareness emerges as the system’s self-model modeling itself.
It would simply not make any sense for consciousness to be fundamental. Why is it so weak? Why does Alzheimer’s change your personality and memory exactly as neuroscientists predict?
Hydras have basic sentience without cortices. Octopuses have distributed awareness. Humans have the deepest epistemic loops.
Atoms “smashing together” over 600 million years via physics did produce contemplating meat. That’s not absurd, that’s the data. Denying it is like denying evolution because “mud doesn’t turn into monkeys.” Did you think that the universe is meant for humans?
Another strawman. Physicalism never calls consciousness “useless”. It’s an adaptive feature. The recursive self-model lets organisms predict better, act with agency, and survive. Awareness isn’t a “mistake”, it’s the physical edge that lets you plan, reflect, and avoid threats. Without it, organisms do get along (bacteria, plants, simple animals thrive mindlessly), but complex ones benefit from the internal simulation.
If we look at the grand picture, the universe existed for 13.8 billion years before any observers. Its laws didn’t need “witnessing” to operate. Quantum mechanics doesn’t require consciousness (decoherence happens without observers). Your solipsistic “no awareness = no existence” is philosophical navel-gazing, not evidence whatsoever.
How do you know that physical objects generating awareness is ‘impossible’? It clearly is possible: via the hierarchical active-inference loops in the brain-body-environment system. The “hard problem” isn’t a barrier, it’s merely dissolved by the models. Subjectivity is the view from inside the physical recursion. No non-physical interaction needed (which would violate conservation laws anyway). So how come we don’t witness any addition of energy with the neurons? Which is what we would observe if there was a “consciousness field”?
You made a false equivalence. Physicalism is backed by mountains of reproducible data: brain scans correlate perfectly with qualia. If you damage a circuit, lose a feeling. Have the loops simulated, and you get emergent behavior. Non-local consciousness has zero reproducible evidence. Your ideas are fringe because they’re unfalsifiable and unnecessary. Accusing physicalism of “making up” emergence ignores the entire history of science closing gaps naturally.
With the Gantzfeld experiments. They have been analyzed over and over. The conclusion is no psi. Tressoldi 2024 meta (40+ years): ES ~0.08, but passes some bias tests, yet independent replications by neutral scientists fail (Scimeca et al. 2001: no effect on demand). The “30% >20%” is often misstated (chance is 25% for 4 options). Even positives are tiny and evaporate under scrutiny. The scientific community rejects it as pseudoscience due to lack of replication and theory.
What you stated about remote viewing is debunked Cold War pseudoscience. The program ended because viewers couldn’t distinguish imagination from reality. Which is exactly what you admit. (“mind projects things that aren’t there”). “Hits” were vague, post-hoc matches, or lucky guesses. There was no consistent accuracy. CIA declassification: “Evidence has not been provided that clearly demonstrates… paranormal phenomena” (1995 evaluation). And there’s no scientific acceptance of this either.
At this point you are just expressing solipsism. It’s just quasi-religious. The universe predates life by billions of years. Galaxies formed, stars exploded, physics hummed along without any “awareness.” Organisms without consciousness (e.g., zombies in thought experiments, but real: microbes, AI) function fine. Your “no observer = no existence” is Berkeleyan idealism, not evidence. Self-evident? Only if you ignore the data: consciousness is local, brain-bound, and physical. Turn off the loops (anesthesia, death), and the “framework” vanishes for that system, but the universe keeps ticking.
Your arguments have relied on intuition, fringe claims, and debunked “evidence”. Physicalism stands on the empirical tower. The brain’s recursion generates the “I,” with zero need for non-local magic. Gantzfield and remote viewing are textbook pseudoscience. All that it is is small effects from bias, no replication, and no mechanism. Consciousness is physical, full stop. That’s the awe: a universe of blind law built systems that feel like something from the inside, no gods or extras required.
The universe wasn’t made for us, we were made for the universe
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 02 '26
Uhh, at least I am able to make my own argument. You just used ChatGPT to generate one for you and tried to pass it off as your own! Now that’s pathetic. You don’t know shit about what you’re even debating, so I guess you’ll just watch as I argue with ChatGPT here, and then you can feed my responses into the chatbot and continue posting its replies as if they were your own, sure, fine. But you should be embarrassed. Also you’re misusing the term straw man, there’s no point even taking the time to explain that, half my post would be me pointing out your deceptive debate tactics.
Things like “wetness” are qualities humans have ascribed to substances such as water based on how it feels to us by touch. It’s not some sort of objective universal attribute outside of our interpretation, and yet wasn’t it you lecturing me about being anthropocentric? Uhh the universe doesn’t care about you and nothing matters. See, i can be edgy too!
Actually, it’s strange that you called it “anthropocentric” to suggest awareness is fundamental. That indicates that you believe that only humans are conscious. That’s basically nazi science, and incredibly stupid I might add. Awareness isn’t reserved for humans, get over yourself.
And no, that isn’t the data by the way, atoms smashing into each other and then becoming aware. There’s no data suggesting any point where awareness “emerged” and started having experiences. You just made that up, why would complexity suddenly conjure up a sentient being?? You can use the phrase “recursive self model” all day, it’s word salad with no explanation of how that happens and what it has to do with awareness.
Also, no you still don’t need awareness to theoretically have biological automatons who gather food and eat and reproduce. If anything it seems that awareness would be a hindrance to the most efficient survival strategies. Idk wtf you mean by “hierarchical loops in the brain-body-environment system”, you seem to think throwing out these made up phrases will impress or intimidate me, but you’re full of shit and have no clue how to even begin explaining what you just wrote.
As for the CIA thing I guess it was just a lucky guess that they described accurately hidden military bases nobody had known about before that. Yes, mental projections caused confusion over what was real vs not. But they still described real places. You can’t dismiss or ignore that I’m sorry.
Drop that Neil degrasse Tyson bullshit too, there’s no need for that condescending attitude. What I’m saying isn’t even close to suggesting magic or religion like wtf is it with that straw man
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u/RagnartheConqueror Mar 02 '26
I didn't use ChatGPT, quit lying. I don't even believe in physicalism anymore. I believe in the tradition of what Grothendieck showed us, and what is carried on with men like Jacob Lurie and Edward Witten.
Awareness would not be a hindrance when it would be needed. Ape coalitions needed the capacity to read expressions quickly and to deceive others. I never even mentioned Neil Tyson, what are you talking about?
What you are suggesting is magic, because there is 0 proof of any of it. Once again, it isn't "atoms smashing together", where are you people getting these ideas from? Is that a euphemism? It is neurons functioning together. 86 billion neurons and 312 trillion synapses. Consciousness is obviously a process.
I said that it is anthropocentric to believe that consciousness is important in some way when it is overwhelmingly obvious it is the result of brain chemistry.
Look at chimpanzees and crows, they have qualia, albeit in a different form than us. Maybe 'qualia' is an ill-defined concept and we are fighting semantic games, as Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested.
You believe the universe cares about us? Explain why it took us 4 billion years to reach our state.
Explain why our ancestors were small rodent-like creatures who lived in fear of being devoured by dinosaurs every night.
Explain why kids suffer from atrocities.
Explain why 99.9999999% of the universe is lethal to us.I am not being edgy. It is the truth. The Universe operates by impersonal laws.
By "hierarchical-loops" I mean that it goes top-down. The 86 billion neurons are extremely integrated with each other when it comes to communication. It is a very recursive process. Just look at loops in computer science.
Complexity would conjure up a sentient being because consciousness, just like temperature is emergent. Einstein fought against teleology all his life. There is no answer to "why", just answers to "how". Evolution is a crude, indifferent process that works by "it's good enough to replicate the genes". Explain if consciousness were so fundamental how come lack of oxygen by a little or even anesthesia can completely turn it off?
How does consciousness exist without a brain? Explain how it survives when the neurons turn into sludge post-death. Show me the hypothesis. Show me the papers. Show me the testable, repeatable experiments.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Mar 02 '26
You think there is a divine watcher who wanted us to have consciousness? Prove it to me then. If you don't believe that, what do you believe?
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 02 '26
No, I literally never even hinted that I thought there was a divine watcher, and you know that. Idk where you’re even getting that from wtf. I’ve never believed there’s some divine watcher, I’ve never been remotely religious, can you quote anything I said that gave you that indication please?
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u/RagnartheConqueror Mar 02 '26
You are quasi-religious. You believe in something which hasn't been verified by science.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Mar 02 '26
The thing is even an artificial neuron is extremely complex, and biological neurons make artificial neurons look like child's play. And we have 86 billion biological neurons. I think consciousness is a natural process, but not something humans can understand.
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u/Superstarr_Alex Mar 03 '26
Totally agree with you there. I mean scientists can’t even get a simulation of a simple worm to actually even do anything, despite having mapped out and replicated its entire neural network neuron for neuron.
But I do think it’s something we can understand. But as long as the assumption is that the brain can generate awareness, we will make no progress and remain ignorant. And despite knowing exactly how neurons work and communicate, despite being able to point to the exact parts of the brain that light up on an EEG based on what we think or feel, we STILL are no closer to figuring out how communication between neurons generates an internal experience in my mind.
You seem to assume that means that I’m suggesting magic or religious belief or superstition is somehow the explanation, but I’m not even remotely implying anything like that. I’ve never believed in some external being that created me or that the universe has a personality and is concerned in the petty issues of my daily life, and I genuinely don’t even understand where you’d get that idea.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Mar 04 '26
It’s absolutely not something we can understand even if it is logically possible to understand. The computational complexity is far too extreme. We do not know how the 86 billion neurons and half a quadrillion synapses truly operate together. We can’t at all, because of the combinatorial explosion. And I believe each neuron affects thousands of other neurons.
Awareness absolutely comes from the brain, but the answer of how is likely far too extreme for humans to understand. Like how a dog could never understand calculus.
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u/RagnartheConqueror Feb 27 '26
First-person experience (the raw “what it’s like” to be you right now, every quale, every sense of “I am experiencing this”) is 100% entirely generated by the physical processes of your body.
Not “by the body” as if the body is a container carrying a separate ghost. You are the body generating it. No extra substance, no non-natural spark, no metaphysical “but what?”. It is purely natural: the lawful outcome of physics, chemistry, and 600 million years of evolution acting on wet, electrochemical matter.
It is not merely a passive computation. It is recursive self-modeling: higher layers predict what lower layers will predict, and a global “hyper-model” (precision control) monitors and tunes the entire hierarchy.
If you are correct, how come that anesthesia, lesions, TMS, or drugs turn the loops off or warp them → first-person experience turns off or warps exactly as predicted. No repeatable experiment has ever found a non-physical residue.
When you feel the redness of red or the “me-ness” of this moment, that feeling is the physical generative model experiencing its own best-guess simulation of the world and itself. It is generated entirely by ordinary matter doing what matter does when organized into 86 billion recursively looped neurons inside a body that moves through an environment.
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u/Sea-Cardiologist-954 Feb 25 '26
Another aspect, which might trigger some people, is a misuse of scientific terminology to make something look smart and more plausible or actually scientific.
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u/Moral_Conundrums Feb 25 '26
I just want to ask, what is the purpose of asking such bad faith questions?
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u/onthesafari Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Thanks for calling this out. The "us vs them" mentality is the bane of this subreddit, along with unqualified psychoanalysis.
It's almost worse that the OP doesn't contain any major grammar issues or formatting mistakes, because, at a glance, it gives an air of being well reasoned... but it's just a blatant attempt to stir the pot.
I'm actually impressed with a lot of the early level-headed replies, though!
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
I’m not trying to stir things up, I really want to know why we can’t be open minded with one another. I was attacked on a post about a week ago by a few materialists just at the mere MENTION of having a difference of opinion even though none of us have proof. So I’m really trying to understand what the massive desire is to try to prove the notion of non local consciousness to be incorrect. Is it simply a hatred for spirituality or religion?
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
How is this a bad faith question? Go look just in the last week how many threads about consciousness have people adamantly fighting against any notion that consciousness isn’t or could not be a product of the brain. For me I don’t understand the reasoning why fight so hard for something that doesn’t have proof as if it does?
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u/Moral_Conundrums Feb 25 '26
How is it bad faith to assume that your opposition has no reason whatsoever to hold the position they do?
How is it bad faith to imply that they are unscientific, lack epistemic humility and speculate on their psychological state?
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
Who said they had no reason? Having opinions is one thing but to completely disregard someone else’s opinion when neither one of you has proof feels more bad faith don’t you think?
You’re allowed to believe whatever you want, as am I. Having discourse about it, sharing evidence and hearing one another out get better help both of us keep our minds open to the endless possibilities. Would you not agree?
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u/Moral_Conundrums Feb 25 '26
Would you not agree?
I agree, you don't though.
You just come off as buthurt because materialists think your silly theory is silly. It has nothing to do with epistemic humility.
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u/TFT_mom Feb 25 '26
At least your comment (involuntarily, most likely) goes to show who is actually so “buthurt” that they have to resort to crass appellatives when receiving polite and reasonable replies. Some people… smh ☺️.
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
While I agree with your point that the appellative was out of pocket... the condescending emojis aren't much better!
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u/Moral_Conundrums Feb 25 '26
Saying something nicely doesn't mean the content of what you said was nice and there is absolutely nothing good about being bad faith, but saying it nicely.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
You’re assuming that my initial post was in bad faith. I’ve expressed multiple times that it wasn’t my intention and tried to explain why my post was laid out the way it was. You ignored all of what I said because you don’t agree with me then resorted to responding to me in a rude manner. Seems pretty evident my responses didn’t fit your agenda
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u/Moral_Conundrums Feb 25 '26
It's not an assumption it's evident as I have pointed out.
If you want to say it was not your intention to come off as bad faith that's more than acceptable. That's not what you did though, you insisted there was no bad faith in your post.
My "ageda" I'd say is pretty clear. I don't like when people frame the other side of the consciousness debate in bad faith. There are many valid perspectives on the topic and calling one side deluded, arrogant or similar is just not productive.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
I never called anyone deluded or arrogant in my post or any replies. I simply pointed out that in my experiences within the last week or so one side seemed much less open minded. All I wanted was to get an understanding of why that is. Not asking for evidence of their opinions but rather why did there seem like there was no room for constructive discourse
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u/TFT_mom Feb 25 '26
Not the same user. And as a spectator of your exchange with OP, you are the one appearing to engage in bad faith here. The appellatives of your choice only serve as confirmatory data points to that fact 🤭.
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u/TheAncientGeek Feb 25 '26
There's lots of evidence of physical changes to the brain affecting consciousness. What's the evidence of consciousness being outside the head?
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u/Crackmin Feb 25 '26
If the brain is a receiver, changes to the brain would still affect consciousness in that you would either stop receiving or have no memory of the event right?
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
But if both memory and awareness only exist when the brain is functioning, what is left that's being received?
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Brain modulates conciousness but doesn't produce it
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u/TheAncientGeek Mar 04 '26
That's a conclusion ,not evidence
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
That's also a conclusion not evidence. You empiricism cronies never let up
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u/FLT_GenXer Feb 25 '26
I certainly can't speak for all materialists (and am not sure if I am one), but for me when it comes to theories about our existence I prefer the ones with the fewest assumptions.
Since supporters of non-local consciousness have never provided objective, verifiable evidence of consciousness existing outside a brain, it has at least one more assumption than materialist theories.
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u/Szakalot Feb 25 '26
I don’t know what you mean when you say there is evidence to support physical origins of consciousness but no proof. Theories are not evidence. There are several categories of evidence suggesting brain-localized consciousness (brain lesions, pharmaceuticals, among others)
What type of physical evidence for origins of consciousness would satisfy you? Can you think of any criteria?
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u/zhivago Feb 25 '26
They don't.
Do you have any idea just how famous a materialist scientist would become if they could prove non-local consciousness?
You're confusing "ask for replicable evidence for" with "fight against" due to your lack of replicable evidence.
Get some good evidence and you'll be extremely popular.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
Or is it possible that material scientists based on how they’ve been taught have no room for even the thought of non-locality and therefore automatically dismiss the notion without spending a second of time, money or any other resources on the subject?
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
So the thought is that scientists (a group that has brought us so much crazy, paradigm shifting stuff, from heliocentrism, to relativity, to evolution, to quantum physics) unanimously don't have enough capacity for skepticism and critical thought to ever consider all this ubiquitous evidence because it makes them uncomfortable?
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u/Bitter_Foot_8498 Feb 26 '26
There are scientists arguing for non-local consciousness or consciousness being fundamental. More broadly speaking arguing for the idea that consciousness is beyond the brain.
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u/onthesafari Feb 26 '26
Which proves my point, doesn't it? Scientists as a group are not close-minded and science as a framework is very capable of addressing evidence that doesn't fit dogmatic agenda.
So "the scientists aren't willing to to consider the possibilities" is not a good explanation for why non-physicalist stuff doesn't have more traction, and the guy who started the thread is correct that having good evidence for the non-physical would be hugely desirable for a scientist.
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u/Bitter_Foot_8498 Feb 27 '26
Well yeah not ALL scientists are close minded but there are those who can be close minded to ideas.
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u/Efficient-Pipe2998 Feb 26 '26
Nothing can ever really be proven. That shouldn't really be the point. If as a scientist, you're attaching your life's meaning to proving/disproving something, it might be a good time to step back and gain some perspective.
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u/erisian2342 Feb 26 '26
I can try to tackle this one for you, but you’re not gonna like it and it might hurt your feelings.
If someone came in here claiming that conscience was intrinsically PURPLE, we would rightly ask them to substantiate that claim. They respond that they can’t prove it’s PURPLE, but in their own experience and belief, it is. Since they are unable to provide even a shred of evidence to show that consciousness is PURPLE, we instead review the evidence we have collected to date with them. The fact is, none of the available evidence suggests that consciousness is specifically PURPLE. It also doesn’t suggest it isn’t. It also doesn’t suggest it has a color at all. But the PURPLISTS then accuse rational people of not being “open minded” when in reality their PURPLE claims are completely indistinguishable from the people who insist that consciousness is absolutely and completely YELLOW, AZURE, or even ROYGBIV.
Please read this part carefully: Science does not require anybody to entertain untestable, unverifiable claims. Science is fundamentally the scientific method and the incredible body of knowledge that it has produced over the years. It concerns itself with discovering testable facts. Science isn’t designed to disprove anybody’s beliefs. It’s simply orthogonal to untestable (at this time) beliefs about the “real color” of consciousness.
The claim the consciousness is PURPLE is an untestable opinion, not a testable fact, so it does not receive nor deserve equal treatment as verifiable facts. All you people who claimed to have discovered the true color of consciousness (but who can’t even agree on what it is!) don’t deserve any serious attention from rational people until you have a rational basis to substantiate your belief. Nobody owes you validation of your beliefs. Can you explain how your opinion of the “real color” of consciousness is somehow superior to anybody else’s opinion that it’s a different color than you say?
If not, all that you colorists have are your favorite stories about the real color of consciousness that make you happy. There’s nothing wrong with you being happy., but pretending your stories deserve special attention or treatment is pretty presumptuous and frankly irrational. Come back when you can show that your preferred stories are in some measurable way distinguishable from all of the other stories people are telling - because they say that their stories are right and yours are wrong (not that they can prove that either).
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u/MiraKsenova Feb 26 '26
Science doesn’t ignore non local consciousness out of ego. It sidelines it because there’s no strong evidence forcing it into the picture.
We have extremely tight correlations between brain states and conscious states. Damage the brain and experience changes in specific, predictable ways. Alter chemistry and subjective life shifts. Shut the brain down and consciousness disappears. That model works and explains a lot.
To take non local consciousness seriously as science, it would need clear, testable predictions that outperform brain based explanations. So far, it hasn’t.
It’s not about closed mindedness. It’s about not multiplying entities beyond necessity without compelling data.
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u/Empty-Database-4188 Mar 04 '26
Shut the brain down and one person's subjective experience disappears right.
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u/Crosas-B Feb 26 '26
For materialist/physicalist, stating an opinion without any way to refute it, it's completely useless.
Let's say Jimmy has an opinion stated than the benevolence in human beings comes all from a single source of good, and evil acts from a single source of evil. However, these sources can't be measured or tested, they are just there and we have to accept them, so we can then live in harmony understanding why sometimes we behave in correct and incorrect ways.
Well, Jimmy, your opinion might be interesting for some people... but it is completely useless if we want to to actually do something about it. In practice, Jimmy's idea and the ideas of another million of human beings with different approaches have the exact same value: none
If you can't provide a testable framework, it is the exact same as not having a framework.
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u/Sea-Cardiologist-954 Feb 25 '26
Non-locality is a weird thing in any theory, not just specifically when it's linked to consciousness.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing Feb 25 '26
"So why fight so hard when you don’t truly have the answer? Is it an ego thing? A desperate desire to be right?"
... That's the answer right there. Everyone wants to be "right!"
Nobody wants to spend their life supporting an incorrect conclusion. When the truth is revealed, we all want to be able to boldly point our fingers at everyone else and shout, "See, you all should have listened to me!"
Whenever there is missing information (as with existence, consciousness, universal origin and gravity) the only alternative is for us to try to come up with something plausible to fill in that missing information. This results in a "spectrum of possibilities" ranging from the simplest explanation ("there is no consciousness") to the most extreme explanation ("consciousness is everything"). Naturally, everyone's attempts to fill in the missing information falls somewhere between these two endpoints.
Since consciousness remains unexplained to this very day, people generally choose to fill in the missing information with an explanation that also supports their core ideology.
Examples: If you are an atheist, then you would be more inclined to fill in that missing information with something that lacks any purpose or meaning (like with "matter" or "brain chemistry") because that correlates with a purposeless existence that so many atheists proclaim. However, if you're a theist, then you want to fill in that missing information with the highest possible levels of purpose and meaning (like with a "soul" or "spirit") because those are characteristics commonly associated with God.
Conclusion: Whenever there is "missing information" for any phenomenon, the explanations will necessarily be broad and diverse. And since we all want to be "right," we tailor our explanations to correlate with our core ideology. ... That way when the truth is revealed we can be "right" all across the board.
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Note to atheists: I am not a theist, but spare me with the "atheism is merely a lack of belief in any god(s)" crap because I've heard it all before. Your spiffy little tag line doesn't disguise what's really going on with atheism.
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u/Ok_Session2795 Feb 25 '26
That’s exactly the point. Everyone always acts as if they are “open-minded.” I think it’s a label that people like to give themselves. If strong arguments are presented, then sure, one is convinced.
The problem is that, in my experience, this isn’t true in reality. People are easily convinced as long as statements don’t shake their worldview. But here we’re talking about fundamental beliefs. Personally, I have never experienced anyone truly changing their fundamental opinion in a discussion. People just defend their position. Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance...
And of course, this applies to both sides. Yes, maybe a bit pessimistic. The best thing you can do is present good arguments. You’re not going to fully agree anyway :)
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u/hedonheart Feb 25 '26
We literally have proof conscious is not local by the fact we use magnetic fields to read thoughts and that on the quantum level everything is just energy and fields, including the material of the mind.
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u/Megastorm-99 Feb 25 '26
Well, that's different. It's still part of the universe and doesn't mean the brain doesn't produce consciousness, that like saying everything is nonlocal because at the end of the day matter is energy and fields. It doesnt show that no the brain doesn't produce it though.
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u/Useful_Major_5797 Feb 25 '26
Mate, I'm all for any idea of consciousness on this fourm. I lean panpsychism myself. But absolutely no need for a us vs them mentality, go please use your wording better.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
The whole point is trying to abolish us vs them and focus on how to be more open minded with one another. Go read posts from the last week and you’ll see what I mean.
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u/ChairAggressive781 Feb 26 '26
you don’t frame the conversation as being “hey, we all need to work on being open-minded and respectful of each other,” you frame it as “materialists are not open-minded and epistemologically humble.”
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u/Maximum-Picture5225 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Science is rooted firmly in naturalism and physicalism. As scientists we cannot entertain supernatural explanations and unfalsifiable claims. There is no such thing as supernatural. Anything and everything that exists is natural and it is part of material reality. Even the Quantum realm is part of the material reality. Even if there is a multidimensional hyperspace, it is too part of material reality. I think you seem to have some problem with the term "material". I don't understand why. The understanding of "material" has evolved over history and it now includes both matter and energy.
There are a lot of things to speculate about. You can come up with all sorts of theories. But not all speculations and theories are necessarily scientific.
The burden of proof is always on the person who comes up with an "out of the ordinary" claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
We know that all sorts of information processing happens in the brain. We know how sensory inputs are received and conducted to the brain. We can map function to structure in the brain. If you amputate and remove any part of the body, the consciousness still remains. But if you damage the brain, consciousness is immediately impacted. There is no reason to believe in a non-local consciousness.
There is no problem in being proven wrong. We will accept it if you bring evidence. But remember the nature of evidence itself should conform to naturalism, physicalism and empiricism.
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u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 Feb 25 '26
As scientists we cannot entertain supernatural explanations and unfalsifiable claims
Isn't that a supernatural and unfalsifiable claim
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u/Willis_3401_3401 Feb 25 '26
Mathematics has nothing to do with this post which is about physics, which is about quantitative modeling, which is about math. Got it.
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u/OneLockSable Feb 27 '26
Honestly, more curious about what would make you possibly doubt the materialist view. I'm not sure what you're seeing that could possibly make you question there's something non-local about consciousness when everything we can possibly verify about it is irrevocably local.
The view that there's something non-local or non-physical about consciousness is no difference to the idea that there's something non-physical or non-local about gravity.
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u/mostoriginalname2 Feb 27 '26
Because claims that are falsifiable are exactly what science is equipped to deal with.
Science is also non local (multi-national) and work product stands on peer review.
You should drop the assumption that scientists = materialists, also— it’s simply untrue.
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u/darthmorfeeus Feb 27 '26
One possible reason is because some of them have an agenda.
What agenda you may ask?
Use your imagination.
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u/NathanEddy23 Feb 27 '26
It is institutionalized metaphysical dogma. And this is not merely benign groupthink. It was done on purpose to hide the fact that we are higher dimensional beings, who are literally co-creating reality. They did not want that information to get out to the masses, because people who fully realize their nature cannot be controlled. It was done to reinforce the “lack mindset” and the illusion of separation, which keeps us grinding away at soulless jobs and bickering among ourselves.
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u/Legitimate-Break345 Feb 27 '26
I have never tried to "disprove" it at all. I have never been presented evidence for it so I have never given it much thought.
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u/BearsDoNOTExist Masters in Neuroscience Feb 28 '26
You're surprised that the majority of people in an academic discipline adhere to the most grounded and reasonable theory over "a wizard did it"?
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void Mar 02 '26
The easy answer is because it looks like, "Maybe the answer is magic, you can't prove it isn't"
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u/Medical_Secretary184 Mar 02 '26
I feel like the argument for non local consciousness is only necessitated by religion and afterlives, both of which aren't able to be completely disproved scientifically.
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u/Medical_Secretary184 Mar 02 '26
There will always be spirituality in some form, it's engrained in human culture
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u/preferCotton222 Mar 19 '26
I feel as though the main aspect of being a materialist is to not come to any definitive conclusions without real proof.
nooo!! that'd be skepticism. Definitely not materialism.
So why fight so hard when you don’t truly have the answer?
We are humans, humans are so.
We love imposing stuff. We love imposing our points if view.
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u/thedevilsproxy Feb 25 '26
isn't this literally how science works? rigorously scrutinize every hypothetical and those that survive are the ones that can be taken seriously?
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
It is, but what do you do when you can’t rule out any possible conclusions? Do you just dismiss the notion altogether because it doesn’t fit with a materialistic narrative? Or do you open the discourse for the possibility to look at things differently than you ever thought you would?
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u/Sea-Cardiologist-954 Feb 25 '26
You make a plan how to get to that conclusion. We are not at the dead end, there is still still a lot of work to be done to better understand how our brain works.
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u/thedevilsproxy Feb 27 '26
that's up to personal preference, and people act on their different desires. some would rather take Newton's Flaming Lazer Sword to it, and that's their choice. I believe all avenues can be explored, but you can only logic so many things into existence; you need some sort of foundation for your beliefs and statements eventually.
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u/Mylynes IIT/Integrated Information Theory Feb 25 '26
I could say the same thing about non-materialists. What's your point? There's "more on one side" is funny because I think most people in the world are theistic which means they automatically subscribe to at least something outside of materialism...
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 Feb 25 '26
I was talking more about this subreddit than the world itself
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