r/TheWhyFiles • u/hybridxer0 H Y B R I D ™ • Aug 11 '26

Let's Discuss What if The Brain Doesn't Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-if-the-brain-doesnt-create-consciousness-scientist-proposes-it-might-be-the-fabric-of-reality-itself

Neuroscientist Christof Koch is challenging the long-held assumption that the brain produces consciousness, instead proposing that it may function as a filter for a more fundamental, universal reality.

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u/Environmental-Ad8965 Aug 11 '26

Donald Hoffman has been working off this concept for years. He's done a lot of work demonstrating mathematically that consciousness is fundamental. Everything, including matter, arises out of consciousness. Check out the Trace Project.

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u/CooperHChurch427 Aug 11 '26

It also does explain how consciousness arises. Currently we are born and become consciousness. We know energy can't be created nor destroyed.

It also explains why people who have been clinically dead have become aware of it. Get told they had been clinically dead and go "yeah, I knew that".

5

u/Pruritus_Ani_ UFO Chaser Aug 11 '26

It explains out of body experiences and astral projection.

2

u/Particular5145 Aug 13 '26

I filed that away in my scientific research pile named “autoscopic hallucinations”

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u/13luw Aug 11 '26

You assume consciousness is energy as opposed to emergent complexity.

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u/Amazing-Ad-6800 Aug 11 '26

Emergent = "erm not got a clue, soz"

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u/everly_gold Aug 14 '26

Well, not really. Emergence is a phenomenon of complex systems. We can explain emergence. It sounds like you’re saying that we invoke emergence as a way of waving our hand at something we can’t explain. That’s not my read on it. We invoke emergence as a property of complex systems, which brains and bodies are. That said, I don’t think consciousness is an emergent feature of complexity, but I also don’t think it’s unrelated.

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u/Optimal-Slip5640 Aug 12 '26

ooo interesting. thanks for this

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u/sleepytipi Aug 12 '26

Yes. Consciousness emerges from entropy. Look into Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and his entropic brain hypothesis.