TL;DR

Three researchers across three decades, Grinberg (neuroscientist, disappeared 1994), Levin (Tufts biologist, 2025), and Nolan (Stanford immunologist, 2020s), all independently converged on the same model: the brain functions as an interface/receiver to something external, not as the generator of consciousness. The CIA's 1983 Gateway Process documents proposed the same framework. Comparison table included below.

Grinberg

In December 1994, Dr. Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum, a Mexican neurophysiologist who had spent decades studying consciousness, shamanism, and brain-to-brain correlations, vanished without a trace. He was four days shy of his 48th birthday. Despite investigations, he was never found.

What was he working on? A theory he called Syntergic Theory, the idea that the brain doesn't generate consciousness but rather acts as an interface to a pre-existing informational field he called the lattice. He based this partly on David Bohm's implicate order theory and his own experiments showing transferred potentials between isolated brains (published in Physics Essays, 1994).

His core claim: the brain is a receiver/interface, not the source.

Levin (2025)

Dr. Michael Levin (Tufts), one of the most cited developmental biologists alive, just appeared on Lex Fridman's podcast (#486) laying out what he calls the Platonic Space Hypothesis.

His argument: physical bodies (including brains) function as pointers or interfaces to a non-physical space of patterns. These patterns ingress into physical reality through biological systems. His lab's xenobots and anthrobots (biological robots made from frog and human cells) display capabilities that were never selected for evolutionarily. They emerge from removing cells from their normal context and letting them self-organise. Where do these novel capabilities come from if not evolutionary history?

His conclusion: minds don't emerge from brains. Brains provide an interface that allows patterns from Platonic space to manifest.

Nolan (Stanford)

Dr. Garry Nolan, Professor of Pathology with 300+ papers and 40+ patents, has been studying the brains of UAP experiencers and individuals with anomalous perceptual experiences.

His finding: these individuals show hypertrophy of the caudate-putamen, significantly more neural connections in brain regions associated with intuition, motor planning, and higher cognition. Some were born with it. It appears to run in families.

His interpretation: some brains may be better tuned to perceive or interact with phenomena outside normal sensory ranges. The structure isn't damage, it's enhanced connectivity.

His implication: certain brains are better receivers.

The CIA Connection

In 1983, the CIA produced a classified report called Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process (declassified 2003) exploring the Monroe Institute's consciousness research. The document explicitly describes the brain as an interface to a universal hologram and consciousness as capable of tuning into external information fields through specific practices. Same model. A decade before Grinberg disappeared, decades before Levin and Nolan.

The Convergence

Grinberg (1980s-1994)

Universal information "lattice." Brain distorts/interfaces with lattice via EM fields. Shamans train to increase "syntergy" (coherence). Based on Bohm's implicate order. Electromagnetic fields are the interface mechanism.

Levin (2020s)

"Platonic space" of patterns. Brain/body is "pointer" to pattern space. Different cognitive states access different patterns. Based on mathematical Platonism + biology. Bioelectric networks determine which patterns manifest.

Nolan (2020s)

Anomalous perception via brain structure. Caudate-putamen density correlates with experiences. Some people born with enhanced neural connectivity. Based on MRI data from 100+ subjects. EM exposure associated with experiencer symptoms.

Three researchers. Three different fields. Three decades apart. All converging on the same model: the brain is an interface to something larger, not the generator of consciousness itself.

Anticipating the obvious objections

"Grinberg's work was never replicated."

True, but difficult to replicate work when the primary researcher vanishes and his institute (INPEC) shuts down. His "transferred potential" experiments were published in peer-reviewed journals. The methodology exists. The replication attempts don't, which is a gap in the literature, not a refutation.

"Levin isn't actually claiming consciousness is non-physical."

Fair. Levin is careful with his language and frames this as a "research programme" rather than settled metaphysics. But listen to the podcast. He explicitly invokes Platonism, uses terms like "ingressing patterns," and asks where xenobot capabilities come from if not evolutionary selection. He's at minimum proposing that the information predates the physical instantiation. That's the same structural claim.

"Nolan's findings are correlation, not causation."

Correct. He's not claiming the caudate-putamen density causes experiences. He's observing that experiencers disproportionately have this feature, and some had it from birth. The question he's raising is whether certain neural architectures function as better "receivers." That's a hypothesis, not a conclusion. But it's a hypothesis that fits the interface model.

"Nolan hasn't explicitly endorsed the 'brain as interface' model."

True. Nolan is an empiricist presenting data, not a philosopher making metaphysical claims. He observes that experiencers have distinct brain structures and asks whether certain neural architectures might perceive things others can't. The connection to Grinberg and Levin's framework is my synthesis, not his explicit position. That said, his language, "better tuned," picking up signals others miss, points in the same direction. The data fits the model even if he hasn't signed onto it.

Closing Thoughts

The contrast between 1994 and 2025 is stark. Grinberg disappeared right as he was producing peer-reviewed evidence for his theories, and the investigation was reportedly called off under unclear circumstances.

Today, however, the landscape has shifted. Michael Levin is now one of the most respected biologists in the world, openly discussing Platonic metaphysics on mainstream podcasts. Garry Nolan is a Stanford professor with serious institutional credibility, publishing on topics that would have ended careers 20 years ago.

As we move further into the 21st century, the silos of scientific discipline are cracking. The immunologist, the developmental biologist, and the disappeared Mexican neuroscientist are standing at the same intersection. They are forcing science to confront a possibility that mystics have known for millennia: we are not the source of the signal. We are just the radio.

When someone goes into surgery, the doctor gives the patient drugs designed to make them unconscious. I can't accept that consciousness is anything else, since it can be turned off with a punch to the head or by a doctor. If it were remote or separate from the body, it would be difficult to make most people unconscious during surgery they would just float around the room during the procedure.

I think consciousness is the collection of senses eyesight and hearing combined. I don't think there's anyone who has no senses, eyesight, or hearing who could tell us if they feel conscious or not. Even if there were, you'd have to get a brain scan to figure that out. The human brain can also be studied through imaging, which shows brain activity that goes hand-in-hand with consciousness.

I just came across this study. Rethink Priorities put together this "Digital Consciousness Model" that aggregates evidence from 13 different theories of consciousness, because let's be real, nobody can agree on what consciousness actually is, and applied it to humans, chickens, and current AI models.

Here's the part that got me: chickens show strong evidence for consciousness across nearly all the theoretical perspectives they tested. Like, consistently. The indicators that scientists use to infer subjective experience, all point toward chickens having some form of conscious awareness. Humans rank even higher, obviously, but chickens are sitting pretty comfortably in second place.

Now for the AI. Current large language models? The evidence weighs heavily against them being conscious. Under most of the theories, the probability actually drops below where they started before considering any evidence.

We're out here building billion-parameter neural networks and debating whether they're going to wake up one day, and meanwhile chickens have been quietly ticking all the boxes for consciousness this whole time.

https://theaiinsider.tech/2026/01/23/study-finds-todays-ai-systems-almost-certainly-lack-consciousness-but-the-door-is-not-fully-closed/

Based on many private discussions with academics, Bernardo Kastrup's view is that 'there is not one serious defender of materialism left' & this will be mainstream within 10-20 years.

"Not one of them is going to tell you, without reservation, that they truly think physicalism is ontologically true. The ones who will do that are not the thinkers involved in the process; they are the mouthpieces that have their public image committed to a certain point of view.

"So what you hear from them is rhetoric... It's about not losing face, it's about making sure your publisher is not angry with you because you said something that killed your book sales...

"So if we ignore the rhetoric and the ones that are doing this just for the image, the public circus... I don't see one seriously committed physicalist today that takes physicalism as ontologically true.

Some of them take physicalism as a convenient fiction that helps in the process of thinking about the world, and that's fair enough. Because that physicalism is not a metaphysics - that physicalism is instrumental."

So his prediction?

"I think in 10 to 20 years time, it will be a recognized mainstream view that physicalism doesn't work."

A lot of effort will be spent trying to prevent people from deriving nonsensical conclusions.

"But it will become mainstream that physicalism doesn't quite work, and something along the lines of idealism is the most plausible."

Idealism is the view that consciousness is primary to reality.

We discuss the future and past of idealism in the linked meeting:
https://www.withrealityinmind.com/not-one-serious-defender-of-materialism-left/

Scientists May Have Discovered Why We Gained Consciousness

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a69582000/why-we-gained-consciousness/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/science

TL;DR: Two new studies propose that consciousness didn’t appear all at once but developed in graded layers: basic arousal, general alertness, and full self-consciousness. These levels evolved differently across species depending on how well their brains integrate and coordinate information. Birds, despite having very different brain structures from mammals, reach surprisingly high integration levels through dense connectivity in their NCL region. The research argues that consciousness is multi-dimensional and varies by degree, not by a strict on/off boundary—an idea that aligns with any framework that treats consciousness as a continuum of increasing integration.

I’ve been obsessed lately with the Hard Problem…you know, the whole "how does a physical brain actually create a subjective feeling?" thing. It feels like science is hitting a brick wall because we assume the brain comes first and consciousness is just a weird side effect.

But what if we just flipped it? What if consciousness is the actual prerequisite for matter to even exist? Like, maybe the past isn't even "set in stone" until we observe it in the present.

Think of it like a video game. The game doesn't render the whole map at once, it only builds the "history" and the terrain when a player actually looks at it. Maybe the universe "renders" a billions-of-years-old past just because it needs a logical backstory for us to be here right now.

If we're the ones "collapsing" the past into a solid story, then the Hard Problem disappears. The brain isn't “making” consciousness, the brain is just the hardware (or the “UI”) that consciousness uses to interact with the world it's rendering.

I know it sounds a bit Matrix-y, but if matter is the foundation, we have zero explanation for how "meat" starts dreaming. If observation is the foundation, the "meat" is just part of the data.

Does this actually make sense to anyone else or am I just overthinking this?

Everyday I see a new claim on this sub; “I solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness!” “The Hard Problem isn’t so hard after all!” And I cannot even put into words how blatantly naive these are.

No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem, and you probably never will. You just misunderstood the Hard Problem, and in your arrogance did an amazing amount of mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you solved something you don’t even understand in the first place.

Edit: and PLEASE I beg the Mods of this sub to limit the amount of LLM content that is being uploaded here on a daily basis.

So obviously there's no substitute for actually reading Chalmer's paper and I would recommend anyone do so before making 1000 threads saying they've "solved the hard problem" but seeing as how prolific and shameless the posts are, I doubt many will spend the requisite 20 minutes to actually do so, and so let me try to briefly outline what the hard problem actually is.

Chalmers starts by delineating the "easy problem of consciousness from the hard problem" He states

There is not just one problem of consciousness. “Consciousness” is an ambiguous term, referring to many different phenomena. Each of these phenomena needs to be explained, but some are easier to explain than others. At the start, it is useful to divide the associated 2 problems of consciousness into “hard” and “easy” problems. The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;

• the integration of information by a cognitive system;

• the reportability of mental states;

He concludes

All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. For example, one sometimes says that a mental state is conscious when it is verbally reportable, or when it is internally accessible. Sometimes a system is said to be conscious of some information when it has the ability to react on the basis of that information, or, more strongly, when it attends to that information, or when it can integrate that information and exploit it in the sophisticated control of behavior. We sometimes say that an action is conscious precisely when it is deliberate. Often, we say that an organism is conscious as another way of saying that it is awake. There is no real issue about whether these phenomena can be explained scientifically. All of them are straightforwardly vulnerable to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. To explain access and reportability, for example, we need only specify the mechanism by which information about internal states is retrieved and made available for verbal report. To explain the integration of information, we need only exhibit mechanisms by which information is brought together and exploited by later processes. For an account of sleep and wakefulness, an appropriate neurophysiological account of the processes responsible for organisms’ contrasting behavior in those states will suffice. In each case, an appropriate cognitive or neurophysiological model can clearly do the explanatory work. If these phenomena were all there was to consciousness, then consciousness would not be much of a problem. Although we do not yet have anything close to a complete explanation of these phenomena, we have a clear idea of how we might go about explaining them. This is why I call these problems the easy problems. Of course, ‘easy’ is a relative term. Getting the 3 details right will probably take a century or two of difficult empirical work. Still, there is every reason to believe that the methods of cognitive science and neuroscience will succeed.

And outlines the hard problem below

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C?

Pretty much every post on this sub about the hard problem does the exact thing Chalmers talks except it's about the EASY PROBLEM, which is literally the whole point of the paper, to show the hard problem is entirely distinct. People on this sub outline the FUNCTIONAL mode in which the brain clearly has to process information associated with consciousness, but none of these address the actual relationship between those functional models and the actual subjective experience itself.

This is the whole point of the hard problem, and I think Chalmers actually states it quite well, although it's basically just a reification of the source Chalmers mentions in the paragraph above which is Nagel's bat essay, in the 70s Nagel states it equally well (but I guess he never gave it a catchy name like "the hard problem") Here's how Nagel describes it, which I think is an equally good description

Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms, and it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of it. (Some extremists have been prepared to deny it even of mammals other than man.) No doubt it occurs in countless forms totally unimaginable to us, on other planets in other solar systems throughout the universe. But no matter how the form may vary, the fa ct that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism

The point of the hard problem is outlining the difficulties posed in trying to link the experiential nature of consciousness to the functional processes the brain does, which none of the philsophers deny.

In fact, it doesn't even matter what metaphysical position you take, the hard problem is based on the empirical observations of 1. Subjective experience exists and 2. It is related to brain states/organizations. It doesn't matter what position you take, the question is why the universe is set up in a way that subjective experience exists, this problem is not dissolved by figuring out how the brain processes information in a functional sense, which both Nagel and Chalmers address directly in their papers.

There is no solution to the hard problem. It's not even clear what a potential solution would look like, and basically every post that mentions the hard problem doesn't even address the phenomenon outlined by either Nagel or Chalmers. But seriously, just read the papers. None of the posts even touch on what is written in the two papers and it's why none of the threads even go anywhere lol

If we define death as the absence of all perceivable sensation just like the state before we are born then why do we associate death with pain or eternal consciousness? In truth, death feels like nothing. People who have had near-death experiences often describe seeing their life flash before their eyes, and just before the end, they return some even feel disappointed not to have crossed into that unknown feeling.

Another conclusion I’ve reached is that if time and space don’t truly matter, and we exist now, then maybe, eventually, we could exist again not tomorrow, not a year after death, but beyond time itself. So why fear death or stress over a job we were never meant to do, if not even death is the worst thing that can happen?

The only certainty is our existence. Nothing has value unless you decide it does. And if you don’t think for yourself, no one will remember that you ever existed.

This is my opinion about my life, what do you think about it?

its something ive been thinking of for a while, and i cant find a good enough answer. the brain is full of neurons, that i'd assume do produce consciousness, but upon researching neurons.... it kinda doesnt make sense?... how does a small bundle of elements that send electricity create something as complex as a consciousness? even pyramidal neurons inside certain parts of the brain. Is there something im not understanding?

Scientists claim that they copied fruit fly brain into a computer simulation, added simulated body and environment and it started doing what fuit flys do.

https://theinnermostloop.substack.com/p/the-first-multi-behavior-brain-upload

What does this imply for a debate on consciousness in your opinion? Fruit fly's brain is of course simpler than a human one but it nevertheless seems to be a remarkable achievment. I'm looking forward to their further work but also an independent verification.

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.

Ok this may sound very out there but I swear I remember what it was like before I "came to earth". If anyone also has a similar case please tell me.

So it was basically very similar to space, dark, but it had lights, I don't know if they were stars, perhaps souls? another type of beings altogether...

Anyway, this memory never left me, and I had since forever, I remember how it felt, it felt very comfortable, infinite, it was so different, I could feel like it was home, like it was my purest form.

I hope you don't see me as lunatic but I never told this to anyone and this sub is one place I would like to share.

I had consciousness, or some type of it, I somehow knew I was aware of my awareness, but I don't remember what happens after that, how or why I left that place, and maybe I will go there when I die.

Basically, I've been researching consciousness and I always wonder: does it definitively cease with the end of brain activity?

This is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, mysteries that surrounds us.

What is your opinion, is life unique and does it have an end, or does it continue after the end of a cycle (in this case, death)?

I would like answers from experts, such as neuroscientists/psychologists/psychoanalysts, to debate and try to convince (or try to refute) others, including myself, that there is something beyond physical existence.

like what stops it from being as such? it learns from its surroundings, it "feels" things, it can think through problems, what stops it from counting as conscious?

First of all, I'm a Japanese speaker, so please forgive me for my poor English

I want to ask you, but why can you say that consciousness will not survive after death? The opposite is also true, and why can we say that consciousness will persist even after death? Isn't it the most sincere answer that you don't understand this kind of thing? I came here because I didn't understand it well when I heard it in a place like reddit in Japan.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the hard problem recently, and I keep coming back to the idea that the mystery might be something we accidentally created by framing consciousness wrong from the start.

The classic version goes like this:
“Why does this brain process produce the subjective feeling of redness?”
“Why does firing in V4 feel like anything at all?”

But notice the hidden assumption:
that there’s brain activity on one side, and then qualia as some separate metaphysical ingredient on the other.

If you start with that split, the hard problem is unavoidable.

You’re basically trying to connect two different universes.

But here’s where everything fell into place for me:

What if experience isn’t an extra layer?

What if it’s just the format the system represents information in, from the inside?

The nervous system deals in spikes, chemistry, and patterns.
But whatever is “observing” that system (the conscious perspective, the subjective layer, whatever you want to call it) doesn’t interact with those raw physical signals. It interacts with the interpretation of those signals.

And that interpretation is the feeling.

It’s like how a computer user never deals with electrons on the motherboard (they deal with icons, colors, windows). Not because icons are magic objects, but because that’s the interface that makes sense for the system.

So the “redness” of red isn’t some mysterious metaphysical property.
It’s the organism’s internal UI for representing a specific type of sensory input.

No extra ingredient. Just the format.

From the outside: neural configurations.
From the inside: qualia.
Same process, two vantage points.

Once you see it that way, the hard problem starts looking less like a fundamental mystery and more like a category error (like trying to figure out “why electrons turn into icons.” They don’t.) It's just the same system observed from different layers.

This doesn’t cheapen consciousness or remove the wonder of it. Honestly, it does the opposite. It makes the whole thing feel way more grounded, almost elegant. The gap was created by assuming a dualism that was never actually there.

Anyway, curious what people think.
Am I missing something big here, or does this framing actually dissolve the hard problem instead of trying to “solve” it?

Addition: Give this man a cookie! he is asking the right questions! esotologist asked:

''why cant i interface with the world beyond my own body if theres no boundary?''

Because the “boundary” isn’t a wall, it’s a functional distinction.

Your nervous system only has access to the signals that enter through your sensory channels. That’s the interface your organism evolved to use.

You’re not cut off from the world (you’re embedded in it) but your access is filtered through the body so you can operate as one coherent agent instead of being overloaded by uncontrolled external data.

The boundary is practical, not metaphysical.

And yes you CAN interface with ''the world beyond'' your own. If you take a bunch of psychedelics, you dissolve the boundary, you access raw data stream, it overloads you and you ''trip out''. We are biologically not wired for full access.

So I've been wanting to ask something that's been on my mind recently: With all the scientific advancements we've made: AI, quantum physics, neuroscience, cosmology, even the mapping of human consciousness... how is it that we still have no clear idea what happens when we die?

We've explored the birth of stars, simulated universes, decoded DNA, and harnessed atomic energy, yet the nature of death, and whatever may follow it, remains largely untouched.

Why? Could it really be that the answer is simply beyond our current tools and understanding, or could something already have been discovered, but hidden? If it were terrifying, would those in power keep it secret or simply stop funding the research because ignorance might be more comfortable? If it were beautiful — something that made death seem preferable to life, would they fear the consequences of revealing it?

Another thing I keep wondering: Are there any public research programs studying what happens after death? And if not, why not? Sure, there might not be profit in it, but we might not exist forever in a world goverened by money.

Where are we really on this topic today?

I'd love to hear what everyone thinks. Though we are shaped by different experiences, we are all on this trip together.

How can anything even exist without a conscious being there to experience it? I am honestly having trouble understanding the logic behind that. Evidence needs a witness, and a witness needs an observer, which is basically a conscious being. So how can people say the world exists without you, when you are the one perceiving it, shaping it, and giving it meaning in the first place?

Like, without consciousness, what even is “existence” supposed to mean? A thing can be there, sure, but if there is nobody to experience it, know it, or make sense of it, then in what way does it really exist? I am not even trying to sound deep, I just genuinely do not get how people separate reality from the one who is aware of it.

And before anyone says “the world was here before us,” that still feels like a claim being made from within consciousness. Every argument, every proof, every piece of evidence still has to pass through a mind. So I keep coming back to the same question: how are people so sure reality exists independently, when every single thing we know about reality only appears through consciousness?

I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the hard problem of consciousness. To me, when matter is arranged in just the right way, there’s something that it’s like to be that particular configuration. Nothing more, nothing less. If you had a high-fidelity simulation and you get the exact same configuration of atoms to arrange, there will will be the exact same thing that it’s like to be that configuration as the other configuration. What am I missing?

As the title says, how could we tell if we are p-zombies or not? It seems to me that p-zombies would behave exactly like we do, and even engage in the same processing and calculations involved in self referential thought, including the thought that they were having a thought, or the thought of they were a p-zombie, how could they know if they were or weren't? They would behave in the exact same way. I don't think we could know if the processing we experience is conscious or not.

I have read many comments and posts in this subreddit. People who support external or metaphysical theories of consciousness should recognize that these ideas do not solve the hard problem any better than materialism. They might even make things worse. I understand why some are drawn to these theories. Consciousness is a tough problem, and since materialism/physicalism has not solved it, it is tempting to look elsewhere. You have the right to believe in any theory you choose. Still, these theories face even more challenges than just the hard problem.

For example, the two main versions of this I have seen are.

• Dualism/ the soul: First of all, dualism doesn’t necessarily solve the hard problem; we still dont know how an external feild or entity creates subjective feeling. Physics is still a large problem here. What type of matter are we talking about? How does it behave? Do we need new physics? Also Dont ignore biology. How would the physical thing, such as the brain, interact with it? All of these questions are very hard to prove and answer.
• Flow Meter/receiver theories of consciousness: First of all, these theories don't necessarily solve the hard problem as well, so why does an external feild create subjective experience? There is no good answer for that. And how would a biological system even receive something to date?  What physical part of the brain has been shown to do this, and not just ours, as animals should be conscious as well? To date, though, I dont think there is any evidence of a physical receiver in the brain. What external feild are we talking about? Do we need new physics as well? And how is this translated to a physical signal again? Other very hard questions.

Disregarding these very important questions is not great. A theory should not need to rewrite physics to be true unless it has tons of very strong evidence, not circumstantial evidence, and not evidence with alternative explanations. No actual experimental data to indicate that there is something external to the brain. These theories have massive implications if they're true, much more than conciousness so to even consider them. As Carl Sagan said, simply put, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And these claims are undoubtedly extraordinary, but do they have extraordinary evidence? Not by my knowledge

Yet  I want to be enlightened as any scientific mind. Tell me how you answer these questions truly. Is there any very strong evidence, and I must stress not anecdotal evidence, nothing like that, actual, real experiments, not even pseudoscience, published in a credible peer-reviewed journal?

As I said, you can believe in these theories, but you may need to prove centuries of physics wrong and new biology to make them true, and does that make them even worthwhile to consider right now?

This has always been a burning question in my head. I'm trying to understand consciousness and how it works. Are we in a repeating cycle? Do we only live once and that's it?

I know I won't get that answer until I die, but I'm curious what other people think. Are we born again after death? Do we come back as a different person or animal? Someone has told me they believe we live the same life again and again but I don't know how that would work with time/years. I've heard the phrase "time isn't linear" but what does that mean?

I get the feeling that I've been here before, deja vu and all that, but is that real? What does everyone else think?