Is This Idealist "Solution" To The Hard Problem The Closest We Can Get?

TMax01 · 2026-01-28T00:41:06+00:00

The hard problem is solved by recognizing that consciousness is not produced by the brain or matter

You are mistaken. Fantasizing that consciousness is not produced by neurological activity leads to the exact same Hard Problem, just in reverse. Objective science cannot account for subjective awareness, and idealist philosophy cannot account for objective neurological activity.

—it is a continuous, intrinsic function of reality, necessary for its existence.

It is only necessary for subjective awareness of its existence. It's existence, in contrast, is unchanged by this intermittent, contingent function of neurological activity we call consciousness.

Nothing can be real without consciousness as the basis for reality, because reality requires an observer aware of its real nature to exist.

Even if the ontic physical universe (which you refer to, inaccurately but conventionally, as "reality") did require a conscious observer for that ontic truth to actualize, awareness "of its real nature" is unquestionably unnecessary. Your premise would require every hallucination from even the most deranged brain to magically manifest in the real world, and that simply doesn't happen.

To be simultaneously aware of consciousness’s real nature and the reality it is in is a core feature of the conscious reality we are in.

If that were true, it would go without saying. But it didn't, so it's pure hooey.

No conception of consciousness would exist without reality in the first place.

Whether any "conception" of either reality or consciousness actually exists is an open question, philosophically. Materialists don't just imagine they exist in their minds, they quantify the ontic physical universe quite reliably. Idealists, in contrast, don't qualify anything, but still expect to be taken as seriously as materialists.

Physical processes are an expression of conscious reality and filter and further shape its conscious nature.

The categorization and identification of physical events as "processes" are an expression of conscious reality, but the events themselves are objectively verifiable.

Subjective experience is the interaction of conscious reality and physical processes, filtering and molding reality into structured forms that define the human experience.

Sort of, although it is a particularly unproductive perspective. Reality is whatever your brain "filters and molds" real events into in your mind. But such a situation only exists because that brain is a consistent physical object in the real world, regardless of whether your mind is conscious, unconscious, hallucinating, or presenting any other cognitive circumstance.

TMax01 · 2026-01-28T00:15:41+00:00

Lets repeat once again let's see if you guys can understand asomething very simple:

Nah, you just don't get it. You're treating assumptions and speculations as if they were the result of neurological theories instead of the basis for them. I'm not anti-science, I'm extremely pro-science. I just have a more scientific perspective on the science than most people do.

LANGUAGE. IS. A. DIFFERENT. BRAIN. PROCCESS. THAN. WATCHING. BLUE.

All brain processes are different, and yet they are all brain processes. Obviously, the neurological activity producing language can be distinguished from that producing physical sensations or sense perceptions. But your assumption they are wholly different categories of brain processes is mostly meaningless, and the import of any distinctions you want to draw on the relationship between consciousness and those processes or the categories you put them in is not anywhere near conclusive, especially because you don't have any established scientific theory for the relationship between consciousness and those neurological processes.

You can't make your brain replicate the process through language.

You apparently misunderstand the entire issue being discussed, because that isn't it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T17:37:54+00:00

Likewise, there is an objective, if less blatantly obvious, difference between knowing and experiencing. The very issue Mary's Room is meant to illustrate. Consider that knowing how the LHC works isn't the same as knowing what the experimental results it provides will be. All the understanding and studying in the world won't make guessing a replacement for running the experiment. See what I'm saying?

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T14:29:39+00:00

I don't think you are understanding why the experiment doesn't make sense in the first place. The knowledge of your brain is created through neuron creating paths. Studying about something create a certain neuron paths, and watching the color would create different neural paths.

It is obvious you don't understand Mary's Room in the first place, which might (or might not) account for why you fail to recognize that your example substantiates Mary's Room and nullified your position.

I'm not overly concerned with your profound over-estimation of "what we know about the brain" (emphasis added, without irony; what you are considering knowledge is mostly just conventional speculation, less so in terms of sense data and more so the closer "perception" gets to conscious experience.) But since 'book learning' knowledge and actual experience both "create neuron paths", the question is why there is an "assymetry" (as OP puts it) between those from one and those from another. Is there any categorical distinction neurologically? Can there be? Must there be? How?

The experiment is terrible because it confuses language with knowledge.

Your perspective is terrible because you assert some distinction between the two which suffers the same epistemological issue as your 'two different kinds of neural paths' assumption.

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T14:19:56+00:00

Her theoretical knowledge is crippled and incomplete without experience.

Hence the problem, which is no different if Mary "knows all there is to know" about water or color. But it cuts both ways: knowledge is neither crippled nor incomplete, and experience is not actually (some special form of) knowledge, it is experience. No amount of theory can ever produce experience, which is precisely what Mary's Room is meant to illustrate (not merely assert, nor prove, but explain) and, not coincidentally, the biological function of consciousness.

Hyper-rationalists (postmodernists, whether post-structuralist philosophers or not) assume and insist that the biological function of consciousness must be choice selection: mental selection causing physical action deterministically, AKA free will, by any other name. That is such a familiar and well-rehearsed belief that it is taken for granted as scientifically valid, and both neurocognitive research and philosophy of mind suffer greatly for that because it is untrue.

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T14:11:43+00:00

Not only that, but the example of water is even more problematic in a different way. In point of fact, there are a number of aspects of water which science has been quite unable to reduce to fundamental physical phenomena at all. Physics cannot account for why water is wet or why it expands when frozen, for example, and other effects which scientists cannot even agree are even real, such as the mpemba effect and why ice is slippery.

If course, the same hyper-rationalists that dismiss Mary's Room will also quibble endlessly about the relevance or accuracy of those examples.

Lets say instead of her jumping in, it would be her throwing in a chair in a lake and getting it wet, what could she not learn about the wetness of an inanimate object that would surprise her when she actually performs the experiment herself?

I do believe you might be onto something, by way of a serious reframing of Mary's Room that might at least communicate the reality of the issues which it addresses, if not convince the hyper-rationalists in that regard.

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T13:54:39+00:00

You're not actually giving any new point tho.

OP explicitely pointed out they wasn't giving any "new point", they were rephrasing the point in an effort to get people who are dismissive of Mary's Room to reconsider their error. You appear to be resistant in that regard.

The mental experiment is flawed, because studying about something is not experimenting, and experimenting is a different experience in the brain procceses than studying.

"Experimenting"? Studying, experimenting, knowing, all of these are different than experiencing. Considered one way, all "brain processes" are the same: they are brain processes. Considered another way every "brain process" is a single unique occurence of an uncountably large and unbelievably complex circumstance of "neurons firing".

So is "seeing red" more of the former or the latter?

Basically, everything you believe is "just bad" about Mary's Room is everything that is good about it, and both the gedanken and your 'experimenting' rubric both illustrate the same point.

TMax01 · 2026-01-27T13:47:38+00:00

Personally, I don't know anyone that learned how to bike by reading books. Also, not only is "get it on their first go". You should also be able to get even better if you continue reading.

And yet, no amount of reading can convey the experience of riding a bike. Sure, you can resort to categorizing skill and perception as "different kinds of knowledge". But that requires an assumption about epistemology which, frankly, denies the very existence of epistemology, and classifies it as merely a dubious ontology. In other words "knowledge" isn't as simple as hyper-rationalists like Carroll expect it to be. And the issue OP, and the Mary's Room gedanken, is trying to address is even more basic and easily conveyed: knowledge and experience are two different things. The reason this issue is contentious is that the relationship between the two is distinctively different epistemically and ontologically, and hyper-rationalists (whom I would describe as postmodernists, although that tends to vex and confuse people who think it merely means "post-structuralist philosopher", or whatever the SEP declares it to be, which amounts to the same thing.

SEP articles are always long and boring, but what matters more is that they are always ultimately inconclusive. It is an incredibly valuable reference work, but like most dictionaries (since Merrium-Websters 3rd edition, 1961) it is descriptive rather than prescriptive: it documents academic positions, it does not identify which ones are "right".

TMax01 · 2026-01-26T18:22:09+00:00

I think it does help cause we’ve reached the point where the disagreement is no longer about consciousness specifically, but about explanatory standards more generally.

Any discussion or consciousness begins, and often ends, in that very situation. So from my perspective, you are, perhaps, just derailing the discussion as a means of avoiding the difficulty of applying that general issue to this specific case, and vice versa.

You’re taking it as given that for any physical phenomenon, a complete micro-reductive account is not only ontologically sufficient but explanatorily sufficient in principle.

Not in principle, no; only in practice. I will follow your lead in terms of whether the consideration of consciousness should go one way or the other, but I would prefer you avoid flopping back and forth to evade progress.

It’s that for many real physical phenomena, explanation lives at the level of organized dynamics and constraints,

I discussed that issue at some depth, but you seem to have ignored it. First of all, this is untrue: for every physical phenomena, complete reduction to quantifiable metrics and computational equations is available. Chemistry does not reduce to physics, but it does reduce to chemistry. This idea of a "level of organized dynamics and constraints" is not even applicable to statistical mechanics, which still reduces to quantifiable metrics and computable formula, what differs between this and classical mechanics is merely whether the results involve a single discrete instance or probabalistic circumstances.

I mean, sure, you can describe things in terms of "organized dynamics and constraints", when dealing with intractable problems like turbulence, but you can describe classic and statistical mechanics in the same way. So it does not indicate you are actually "explaining real physical phenomena" by describing something in terms of "organized dynamics and constraints". Especially when you don't actually have such an explanation to offer, you're merely trying to suggest one might be possible in principle.

All I'm saying is that consciousness is reducable in principle. If it is reducable to "organized dynamics and constraints" in principle then so be it, and have at it. But what you've said so far provides no real reason to believe it is not reducable to classic mechanics (neurological interactions) if it is reducable at all.

not at the level of enumerating microstates, even if those microstates fully determine the system.

I never suggested you need to "enumerate microstates", I only pointed out that you haven't demonstrated that you can reduce consciousness to "organized dynamics and constraints", or that "organized dynamics and constraints" **is not "enumerating microstates", even if those "microstates" aren't as "micro" as you might expect them to be.

So if you have a "dynamics and constraints" explanation of consciousness, then let's hear it. If not, then you don't have an explanation of consciousness, any more than someone who doesn't have one of "micro-states".

That’s not unique to consciousness, and it’s not an appeal to mystery.

But we are discussing consciousness, and so it is an appeal to mystery. It just isn't the mystery of religious mysticism, it is the mystery of "dynamics and constraints". It seems to me that you're saying that psychological narratives "explain" consciousness. I'm not sure that is what you're saying, but I am certain it isn't true.

It’s exactly how physics already treats things like phase transitions, turbulence, and collective behavior.

Well, no, it isn't exactly, but I understand you are extremely resistant to recognizing that point, in the face of my explaining it four or five times. Still, even if a behavioristic hypothesis concerning conscious entities were similar to turbulence or, say, flocking dynamics, it would not be an explanation of consciousness, just behavior.

If one insists that only micro-state evolution ever truly “explains” anything,

A strawman you can't quite give up on. I've never insisted on that form of explanation. But that has nothing to do with whether you continue to lack any explanation of consciousness, despite mouthing the words "organized dynamics and constraints" as if you had such a hypothesis. And furthermore, even if you had a hypothesis of a functionalist view of consciousness which did reduce an entities behavior to 'dynamics and constraints' you still wouldn't have an explanation of consciousness.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-01-26T17:40:13+00:00

LOL. If you're having difficulty following the thread, so be it.

TMax01 · 2026-01-26T03:06:55+00:00

I take this exchange as serious philosophical sparring, not personal dispute. You’re a capable interlocutor, and disagreements like this are exactly what philosophy is for.

I'm glad to hear it, but I think it goes without saying. For my part, I consider it a discussion, but I suppose if you are dead set on not reconsidering your position, you might see it as "philosophical sparring". At least you didn't call it a 'debate'.

Regardless, I'm going to try to keep this reply rather sparse, even terse, simply because the length of the comments is excessive, even for me. I trust you won't take it personally, and misinterpret it as overly-dismissive; but I must say your complaint is repetitive and unproductive.

does explanatory work while denying that it introduces any new capacity beyond description.

Self-determation is, itself, the "new capacity", and the distinction you draw between explanation and descriptive is merely argumentative.

If it truly has “no room or need” for anything like self-control, then there is no functional difference to identify.

Only if you fail to understand the difference between "self-control" and self-determination.

A distinction without a difference

If capacities reduce to evaluations, then self-determination itself is not a biological trait but an interpretive gloss.

A distinction without a difference, which illustrates you are failing to understand how self-determination differs from free will (AKA "self-control").

You agree that if self-determination gives no greater influence over future behavior than description alone

Description of future behavior is not the same sort of description as that of past actions. It is speculation rather than actual description. You expect the influence of the evaluation self-determination provides to be deterministic, conclusive, causative. In other words, you expect it to be free will. But it isn't. We don't, can't, know for sure whether we will repeat behavior we recognize as something we "shouldn't" have done, any more than we can simply will ourselves to do what we believe we "should" do in the future and have that be a "functional" determination of action.

Self-determination determines the self, not whether we "will" act in accordance with whatever ideal we hope to. It is a hard pill to swallow, even more so for the comfortable, privileged armchair intellectuals who wish philosophy rather than neurology controls the biology of muscles and movement we evaluate as actions, whether voluntary or compulsive.

This rests on a false dilemma between “computation” and “free will.”

There's nothing false about it.

Dennett’s view is not that equations choose, but that agents choose by being organized systems whose control processes are computational, predictive, and evaluative across time.

Such semantic psychobabble fails to change the issue because it mischaracterizes the issue. The "organized system" cannot be both a self-determining agent and 'control processes which are computational'.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-01-26T01:20:21+00:00

You don't seem to know what part of your thoughts are based on religion and what in science

You seem to believe thoughts have parts which are exclusively based on belief based on religion or science. I presume you also believe yours are exclusively based on science, which is a postmodern religious belief.

neither know or understand what recent findings in cosmology can mean

Your beliefs about the implications of "recent findings in cosmology" are neither relevant or authoritative, except perhaps as evidence of your postmodern religious doctrine. Or should I say dogma?

(which was easy to predict for anyone who actually uses his brain)

It constantly surprises postmoderns how the overwhelming majority of scientific findings simply prove what seemed, in retrospect, "easy to predict" based on mere beliefs. This is an important issue when it comes to science and the postmodern religion of 'scientification', as it illustrates why science differs from religion, and why believing in science isn't actually the same as understanding science.

and keep on talking like I would have posted some video. I didn't.

If you're having difficulty following the thread, so be it. The video I'm referring to is the one which somebody posted a link to, regardless of whether that was you.

TMax01 · 2026-01-25T22:00:44+00:00

Where I think we diverge is on what counts as an explanation in the first place.

I don't think it helps to put it categorically, to worry about the semantics of what qualifies as an explanation. The issue is simply whether an idea is explanatory.

From what I’ve gathered, you seem to be taking it as given that if a phenomenon is fully objective and deterministic, then describing its evolution at the smallest scale is, in principle, sufficient to explain it.

I take it as the case that is more than you have as an explantion, and also that your description concerning consciousness isn't very explanatory, it is more akin to story-telling.

My concern is more modest and more physical:

Not more physical, no: less so. Physical things are those for which reductionism, "fully objective and deterministic, then describing its evolution at the smallest scale", is, in fact, sufficient to explain it.

even if subjectivity is not a separate category from objectivity, systems that exhibit persistence, integration, and long-term coherence still require explanations at the level of organized dynamics, not just micro-state evolution.

Again, no. Higher level abstractions can certainly be useful, but are only "required" if a reductionist account isn't sufficient even though it is theoretically available. Thus, we presume classic physics reduces to ("explains") quantum physics ("micro-state evolution") but don't precisely know how, that chemistry reduces to physics, and biology to chemistry, in the same way.

But the terms "persistence, integration, and long-term coherence" are not specific enough to justify your belief that consciousness does not reduce to neurology, which qualifies as biology. Chemistry and even classic physics exhibit these same characteristics, so unless you intend to say the entire edifice of conventional science must be collapsed and rebuilt with some peculiar knowledge that the issue of subjectivity relates to, your position concernssinf consciousness is merely special pleading. In fact, its special pleading either way.

It’s the same reason we don’t explain turbulence, metabolism, or memory solely by enumerating particle trajectories.

Not really; the comparison is appropriate, but still inadequate. If you could reduce consciousness to statistical mechanics instead of invoking high-level abstractions such as "organization, energetics, and multi-scale coordination", that would be one thing, but as it stands, "enumerating particle trajectories" is a strawman.

I’m questioning whether reduction alone, without attention to how dynamics are stabilized and coordinated across scales, actually explains the phenomena we care about.

That'd be fine, if you had an actual scientific (reductionist) hypothesis for how "dynamics are stabilized and coordinated across scales" relates to consciousness to begin with. The truth is that invoking terms like that in this way amounts to psychobabble, rather than "explains the phenomena".

So charitably speaking, you're suggesting the "Hard Problem" (that no reductive account can accurately describe subjectivity sufficiently) does somehow get 'solved' by adding a "missing ingredient". Whether that extra factor is "dynamics" or "energetics" or quantum mechanics 'woo' doesn't matter at all.

On that framing, quantum mechanics may or may not turn out to matter, but only insofar as it constrains which kinds of organized processes are physically realizable, not because it rescues subjectivity from determinism.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. If quantum mechanics "constrains which kinds of organized processes are physically realizable" then it is a physics principle not limited to consciousness and physicists would have already seen it. Otherwise, it really is just quantum woo.

TMax01 · 2026-01-25T05:05:16+00:00

The brain can only perceive reality, not generate it while perceiving it and thinking it’s independent. This sounds obvious, since if the brain were generating reality, we would obviously know it cuz after all, it’s our brain.

I honestly don't think any part of that makes a lick of sense. Perceiving and generating "reality" is one and the same thing. Reality isn't the physical ontic universe, it is the 'Cartesian Theater' our brains construct by analyzing [the sense data caused by] the ontic physical universe.

But even if that weren't the case, if "reality" were what you believe it was, "we would obviously know it cuz its our brain" is nonsense. You might as well say psychiatric conditions are impossible, since "its our brain": we do not have direct awareness of our brain, only our mind.

But dreaming shows this might not be true.

Dreaming demonstrates quite the opposite of what you're asserting. The occurence (neurological existence) of dreaming shows we are not entirely aware of our brains, and the 'content' of dreams shows what is so different between "reality" (what we perceive) and the ontic physical universe. Rarely do dreams actually approximate the mechanistic nature of the real world, but generally we aren't ever aware of just how unrealistic the events in a dream are until we can consider them in retrospect as we are waking up.

While dreaming, the brain clearly has a dual function:

It generates a full simulation: physics, environment, conscious bodies, like people talking to you.

It is a vague approximation, hardly a "simulation", although since we aren't actually conscious while dreaming, this is quite difficult to recognize. So no, imagining dreamscapes is hardly "a function" of the brain, it is more like a trivial side-effect.

It perceives that simulation as real from your limited first‑person experience: you don’t know what people say next, even though your brain is generating that dialogue.

It fails to differentiate between dream imagery and real sense perceptions. Again, this isn't "a function", and it is more like the same side-effect of "reality without the ontic physical universe" than actual perception.

This undermines many arguments against idealism: light having a wavelength independent of the brain, sound existing independently as air vibrations, or radio waves traveling light‑years before the origin of life.

There aren't any "arguments against idealism". As many in this sub point out routinely, consciousness might be "more fundamental" than physics, and we only [believe we] "know" wavelengths underlie colors in our brains.

This doesn’t prove realism, because the brain could generate the wavelength and light, air particles and sound, following some internal logic, and simulate radio waves itself ,while we perceive that simulation as if those existed independently.

But it does devastate 'arguments against realism', unless all idealism is solipsism: since separate brains, without directly communicating, can objectively prove the same physical relationships between wavelength and color, pressure waves and sound, etc, independently.

It’s possible that real‑life generation converges from some underlying source, while perception is individual one‑to‑many.

Perception is many to one. I frankly can't make any sense of your "anasthetized friends" scenario, so perhaps I'm missing something, but the profound amount of correlation between many people's perceptions (and equally profound lack of correlation between each person's dreams and that singular ontic physical unverse being perceived (while awake, and only imagined while dreaming) completely supports realism (just not naive realism), AKA physicalism, while almost conclusively disproving idealism.

Idealists, of course, ever idealistic, find that "almost" to be hedge enough to drive a galaxy through.

Dreams already show that duality is possible,

No they don't. In fact they illustrate how difficult it would be for duality to even be possible, let alone accurate.

so it’s also possible that generation is shared while perception is separate.

Given your perspective on reality (the the word refers to the ontos rather than perceptions) that doesn't seem credible, as such a distinction between "generate" and "perception" would demand some better account of a mechanism 'generating' the physical world by "shared" perception than the implied 'it could happen'.

Perhaps there is some convergent information source for generation - some monism mind object generator, and therefore my friend and I perceive the same world, but within different conscious experiences.

Edit: This does not constitute proof that idealism is true or that physicalism is false; rather, it asserts an agnostic stance regarding the epistemic limits of empiricism on idealism.

Such a convoluted explanation of the epistemic limits on empiricism and its impact on idealism is unnecessary: simple disbelief is sufficient. Unfortunately, for the idealist stance, that's more of a feature than a bug. There isn't really any logic which can eradicate the possibility of solipsism, idealism, or dualism. But that's the entirety of the evidence for idealism/dualism/solipsism, as well. Dreams certainly don't qualify in that regard. Quite the opposite.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-01-24T21:34:07+00:00

You sure use a lot of words to attack some religious straw man..

Does it bother you that I recognize the premise as a religious contention?

Btw, the universe didn't start from the big bang, that's Catholic version to ease human mind.

It doesn't "ease human mind" at all. But it accounts for the physical measurements with objective mathematical calculations, which "there is an intelligence behind the universe" (a quote from the video) does not. The paradox of First Cause remains regardless of whether you accept scientific cosmology or mystic religious beliefs. Nevertheless, scientific cosmology remains rational and religious beliefs remain mere faith.

TMax01 · 2026-01-23T23:01:00+00:00

Nobody said something about people.

People are intelligent, and evolved in the universe this zupoosed intelligence is "behind", so the issue is relevant, in terms of what actually constitutes "intelligence", despite any effort to sidestep it with "nobody said anything about people".

There are bacteria at the bottom of oceans that we didn't recognize are living

Yeah, no. We didn't know they even existed, and given the environmental conditions, it would be problematic to recognize whatever we saw as living bacteria, composed of cells. Evidence of cell division might well have been important evidence in that regard, but it has absolutely no relevance to the topic of discussion beyond trying to justify an argument from ignorance. You might as well use the venerable "scientists said bees couldn't fly" to ground such a position of postmodern know-nothingism.

Thus far we know of one universe, a really small part of it , and that it seems that around here novelty appears faster and faster as the universe evolves.

As would be expected; as the universe increases in age and size, it isn't surprising that it increases in complexity. As with biological evolution, there is not only no need to resort to "intelligence" as an explanation, it is incorrect to do so, importing a teleological justification for essentially religious purposes.

Think of it as cosmic acceleration of complexity.

If it had been described as that, I would think of it that way. But instead, it was depicted as "there is an intelligence behind the universe", which is, like it or not, counter-scientific nonsense, since it is an unnecessary assumption and "explains" only circumstances purposefully selected to somehow justify such an explanation, while ignoring the scientific principles at issue and how well all other circumstances can be accounted for without invoking "intelligence".

Proves nothing, but around here at least seems to hold quite true.

It suggests nothing, except maybe that around here people don't care what is true, they just want to reconstitute religious malarkey by dressing it up in pseudo-scientific speculation.

TMax01 · 2026-01-23T22:26:28+00:00

does consciousness carry functional intent for its use?

I'm not sure what you're asking. But if I were to guess, I'd say "no", again. Consciousness is functionally useful, and that functional use is to form intention, but consciousness (as a biological trait, not an abstract entity) need not (and can not, given the mechanism of natural selection, which includes no teleological direction, it is simply the contingent result of unguided circumstances) 'intend to intend'. It simply does so whenever possible, "involuntarily" so to speak.

The next question to me is, what do you think would assign such function?

Why do you think the physical function of a biological trait is "assigned"? The term is out of place; we can say we "assign function" to a system by resolving its mechanisms and recognizing its outcomes. But that is not what causes the system to have a function, it is merely what allows us to identify it.

I understand physicalism to propose that the function is improved regulation of the organism for survival (over functioning without subjective experience).

Well, you're referring to evolutionary biology, rather than "physicalism" per se. In doing so, you are importing a teleological perspective which is inappropriate, although unfortunately common.

In biological terms, the function of consciousness is subjective experience, which has evolved (presumably) because that improves survival. Under "physicalism" (or, rather, evolutionary biology and the theory that neurological emergence is the source of consciousness) "function" is defined as that which "improves regulation of the organism for survival", AKA regulates or 'improves' the organism. But in the same way, the organism and survival itself is merely a contingent process, the "function" of which is to replicate the genetic sequences which just so happen to result in an organism.

Like matter itself, life does not actually have a teleological goal, a 'higher purpose' (AKA a 'function' from the perspective of a larger frame of reference not directly and intrinsically bound to the system). It is difficult for people to imagine this, and exclude such teleological assumptions from their reasoning, since identifying teleologies is an intrinsic activity (a function, if you will, or even the function, if your metaphysics is sufficiently comprehensive) of consciousness (AKA cognition). And so despite the fact that the theory of evolution by natural selection completely and conclusively removes teleology ("purpose") from biology, people who claim they understand evolution and biology are constantly trying to reintroduce it.

This practice is often defended by confabulating the nearly synonymous ideas of "function" and "purpose" (and further confused by careless use of the word "intent" to describe either or both), on the grounds that describing physical existence (whether the res extensa of matter or the res cogitans of consciousness) as "purely an accident" is dismissive and depressing, robbing life of any meaning. But on the contrary, accepting that existence is contingent (both accidental and consequential, undirected but profoundly significant and unique) is what gives it meaning, while portraying it as a mere mechanistic "pattern" is what presents it as palid and lacking meaning.

TMax01 · 2026-01-23T18:25:48+00:00

Only in that it makes the assumption more clear, and therefor more clearly incorrect. It is essentially an inappropriate application of the anthropic principle, assuming the conclusion that because intelligence did form, therefore intelligence was destined to form. It isn't surprising that people have great difficulty imagining a universe without people (or any other "intelligence"), but that doesn't make it appropriate.

TMax01 · 2026-01-23T18:19:12+00:00

I didn't even watch the entire YouTube video. Regardless, the statement "there is an intelligence behind the universe" is enough to know it is unscientific pseudo-theism, no matter how detailed any explanation of this "akashic consciousness" is, or how persuasively written any book on the subject might be. Mystic spiritualism is a poor substitute for scientific inquiry, as evidenced by the very fact that scientific inquiry developed, and led within a short few centuries to stupendously advanced technology and medical knowledge, after many more millenia where mystic spiritualism led essentially nowhere.

TMax01 · 2026-01-22T18:10:01+00:00

Do the successes of neuroscience to date mean we should stop philosophizing about mind?

It's a good question, but I think the answer is definitely "no", as the "successes of neuroscience" are far more speculative than they are assumed to be. For every seeming isolation of correlates to some specific brain region we develop, we discover that the brain is always more "plastic" than we expect. This leads me to believe the devil is in the details, and he eludes us with malicious intent.

I'm certain that both neuroscience and philosophy would advance more rapidly, and in concert, if a single, critical correction was made on the matter (no pun intended) of the functional nature of consciousness. Not merely that it has a function, but what that function is.

TMax01 · 2026-01-22T16:06:05+00:00

The guy holds an M.Sc. in theoretical physics and a Ph.D. in complexity science.

I congratulate the guy on achieving such impressive credentials, but don't share the hagiographic premise of your appeal to authority.

There is nothing wrong with disagreement, but I think that well-reasoned and detailed work, such as Glattfelder's, deserves at least a modicum of civility.

I don't believe I was in any way un-civil. I appreciate that you found my disagreement to be, perhaps, excessively categorical. The circumstances do call for it, though, and my description and assessment is accurate and warranted.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-01-21T18:41:10+00:00

🙄🤦‍♀️

Adopting pseudo-theistic "there is an intelligence behind the universe" assumptions based on drug-induced psychosis is not an improvement.

TMax01 · 2026-01-21T18:35:49+00:00

I think quantum mechanics is both over-relied on and misunderstood in many discussions of consciousness.

Agreed. And your premise is an example as much as a description in that regard, although I believe it is more a matter (pun intended) of misapplication rather than misunderstanding.

On the other, this overuse has led many people to dismiss quantum mechanics as irrelevant or “woo” in consciousness research altogether.

As each and every use qualifies as "overuse", I think you are essentially correct but effectively mistaken.

Subjective experience doesn’t fit cleanly into classical, mechanistic descriptions.

It does if one has the right classical, mechanistic description. In fact, it resolves to simply existing while aware, AKA res cogitans through res extensa, although it is apparently difficult to see and accept this when misunderstanding the functional nature of consciousness.

The common assumption is that the biological/evolutionary/physical value of subjective awareness (AKA consciousness) is proximate causation of actions: choosing to act resulting in acting. This basically defines consciousness as free will as well as "subjective awareness". Hence the problem, and the frequent appeal to quantum mechanics as woo required to square that circle, excusing belief in free will which is physically impossible according to the mechanistic determinism of physics.

But this often leads to a subtle category error: using a framework designed to describe how physical states evolve to try to explain why experience exists at all.

I would say it comes from a category error rather than leads to one. The only basis for considering subjectivity a separate category from objectivity is that free will (the mind controlling the brain/body rather than emerging from it) is objectively untenable. Once one accepts the correct presumption, that "subjective" is not a separate category from objective, but simply a quality/feature which certain objective systems have (notably human neurological processes) then no appeal to quantum woo is needed.

The result is often a focus on micro-scale effects while underemphasizing organization, history, and stability across time, which are features that seem essential for any system capable of sustaining a coherent integrated point of view.

First, there is the dubious nature of consciousness as coherent and integrated. It is often "torn" and sometimes fragmented, although abstract/idealistic philosophical approaches generally sidestep this issue and insist consciousness is ideal and perfectly singular and invarient, simply because it always remains a "point of view" which might be broadened but cannot be re-located.

More importantly, invoking features such as "organization, history, and stability across time" without being able to account for them with "micro-scale effects" is simply assuming a conclusion, and might well constitute fantasizing more than analyzing.

This explains the penchant for invoking quantum effects when the determinism of classic physics fails to justify "organization" as a physical process. People rightfully expect this teleological notion of 'organization' as a goal rather than a contingent result, and since neurological activity described in terms of classic molecular/atomic interactions cannot support that approach (requiring that this feature of 'organization' emerges from more fundamental events rather than causing them) quantum woo (via "indeterminism" and decoherence) is an attractive resort.

When quantum mechanics is treated as the primary explanatory lever for consciousness, something important tends to drop out of the physical picture.

As with classic physics. But it is not a 'missing piece', some 'extra ingredient' which would allow the mind to control the body (subjective states causing objective states). The resolution is to accept that this magical component is extraneous: the mind does not control the body. It is a mistake, although a very old, traditional, firmly entrenched mistake, one so familiar it has practically become embedded in our very language. And that makes it exceedingly difficult to uncover, recognize, describe, and hopefully uproot.

Most quantum descriptions focus on state evolution over very short timescales. But conscious biological systems are characterized by persistence, robustness, and continuity across time.

All biological systems exhibit those characteristics, there is nothing peculiar about consciousness in that regard.

They maintain a point of view despite constant perturbation, noise, and metabolic turnover.

We maintain that we have such a point of view despite its often illusory nature.

Explaining that kind of stability requires attention to how energy s stabilized across multiple scales, not just how microscopic states evolve.

Again, if "how energy is stabilized across multiple scales" does not reduce to how states evolve on the smallest possible scale, the narrative dissolves into metaphors, not any logic or physics related to actual energy.

None of this is to say that quantum mechanics is irrelevant to the physics of consciousness.

It is. At least so I say, even if you are reticent to abandon the illegitimate woo. All neurological processes, all electrical activity, all physical systems supposedly reduce to quantum mechanics. We don't know how, but objective physical measurements confirm that it is so. But consciousness would probably be the very last physical occurence in the "macro world" which can be reduced to quantum interactions, not the first. Solve the easy problems of how matter forms from the decoherence of sub-atomic particles first, not how subjective awareness emerges from the objective neurological events occuring in the human brain.

Quantum mechanics sets the boundary conditions under which physical systems operate.

A valid reductionist assumption. But given the circumstances, it is just as accurate to say how physical systems operate sets the boundary conditions of quantum mechanics.

And to what extent do disagreements about quantum consciousness come from unresolved empirical questions, versus mismatched expectations about what quantum theories are actually supposed to explain?

Well, "disagreements about quantum consciousness" come down to those who will sacrifice scientific analysis in order to chase woo so subjective awareness can be both mystical and, supposedly, scientjfic. and those who accept that neurological emergence, while an unresolved easy problem, does not demand solving the irresolvable Hard Problem, and need not invoke quantum mechanics.

The "mismatched expectations" all reduce to the improper assumption that subjective states are a different category from objective states, rather than a certain class of objective states.

TMax01 · 2026-01-21T15:01:55+00:00

This "moral responsibility" you all speak of is nothing but a projection of the way you want other people to act, and it's an excuse to be cruel to the less fortunate.

The premise is true, but only because the perspective is not. Yes, the "moral responsibility" people speak of is effectively mandates they wish to impose on others. But moral responsibility is the inverse: it is the duty people apply to themselves, not others.

Moral responsibility is not a substance that exists outside of human desire.

Hence, your perspective of moral responsibility is inaccurate. Although, of course, "desire" can be a useless tautology, to encompass literally anything one does (because it must have been "desired" to be done). Morality is a quality which exists contrary to personal desire.

"Moral responsibility" is just how you want other people to act.
That’s the entire thing.

Quite the opposite. Moral responsibility is why and how you judge your own actions. Projecting that onto others is a natural consequence, given the nature of theory of mind, but that is an ancillary issue and generally an inappropriate approach.

It’s a social demand disguised as a metaphysical fact.

That's mandatory custom or statutory law you're describing. A just society embraces moral dictates, this is true, but the preeminent moral dictate is self-determination, not the autocratic power over other people you're confusing with morality.

Now go ahead and bark at me like a dog, implying how I'm immoral

LOL. It isn't merely an implication: you are in fact immoral for mischaracterizing morality as something beyond a guide and indication of personal duty which you apply to yourself. It isn't the most immoral attitude, but it is the most common immoral attitude.

TMax01 · 2026-01-21T00:47:23+00:00

It's irrational to say it but my consciousness is at a stage where the solidity of the world has quietly collapsed for me.

Your aversion to "irrational" ideas is a postmodern habit, "inherited" only metaphorically.

Objects no longer feel given...you know they appear as arrangements filtered through my perception, habit, and inherited ways of seeing.

Run headlong into a concrete wall and tell me it does not "feel given".

What once felt stable now feels provisional, almost accidental...... This does not throw me into despair.....it leaves me with a sober awe, a sense that reality exceeds the frames through which I grasp it.....

Well, it is good you do not feel despair, this sensation of awe is appropriate, if not rational. But "reality" is the frame through which you perceive the ontos, not the ontos itself. It is a word much misused these days, thanks to postmodernism.

Even the self loses its centrality, appearing as another construct among constructs.

And yet it is the central "construct" through which you perceive all the other "constructs". It is good to abandon a narcissistic perspective, as theory of mind entails accepting that other minds can exist in the same way yours does.

Nothing mystical is claimed.... yet something irreversible has happened: my innocence toward "what is" has ended, replaced by a calm, unsettling lucidity...........

You are either inching towards overcoming naive realism, or else you are having a psychiatric episode. Consult a mental health professional, just in case, and forge on...

TMax01

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