Why Consciousness is primary: epistemological and scientific evidence

Abstract

The debate about the nature of consciousness revolves around two opposing theories: a) consciousness is a byproduct of the brain; b) consciousness is primary and manifests some, but not all its characteristics, by using the brain that functions as a filter. Although ostensibly odd from the materialist standpoint, the idea of the primacy of consciousness is a thousand years old and runs through the whole history of cultural, religious and philosophical traditions of both the East and the West (e.g., see Indich, 1995; Kastrup, 2018; Walach, 2020), a fact suggesting the need to reappraise it through a metaphilosophical approach (Facco et al. 2021). The aim of this opinion paper is to outline some scientific evidence supporting the idea of the primacy of consciousness.

Does it matter to define what is matter? A primer for materialists and beyond

“…The above phenomena plus the nature of qualia, that is the phenomenological personal experiences, and mind-body causal effects, like placebo, analgesic hypnosis, etc., give support to the hypothesis that Consciousness is the primary stuff of all that exists (see Tressoldi & Facco, 2021). This interpretation fits well with Western Idealism (Kastrup, 2018;Guyer & Horstmann, 2021), which postulates that reality itself is a form of great thought/consciousness and that human thoughts participate in it and Eastern Adavaita-Vedanta philosophy which means non-duality (Indich, 1995;Wikpedia, 2021) which states that the only reality is Brahman, the "pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes", which we can also be defined as the "primordial or pure Consciousness".…”

Miracles in the brain: how brain activity generates phenomenological first-person experiences according to some neuroscientists

“…However, whether identity theory or panpsychism proves to be correct in the near or distant future, they will encounter many obstacles in trying to explain a host of top-down voluntary or unconscious mind-brain-body phenomena where mental contents causally modifies the physiology and anatomy of brain and body: from placebo to hypnotic analgesia, from meditation to psychoneuroimmunology, and all phenomena that violate the perceptual and motor constraints of our body and our sensory organs (for a review, see Tressoldi & Facco, 2021).…”

The Presentiment Effect Points to an Occurrence of a von Neumann's Collapse

“…Therefore, one can say that the orthodox interpretation is the most natural interpretation. Moreover, nowadays, as Tressoldi and Facco (2022) argue, there seems to be accumulated epistemological and scientific evidence that consciousness is primary.…”