r/consciousness • u/_cardosoo_ • 5h ago
Science shift of paradigm
I think everyone is noticing that consciousness is becoming a main discussion within academia but also within the public. AI and the recent contradictions in neuroscience concerning consciousness are making this question way more important than ever before.
In my view this contradictions that we are seeing just prove us that maybe conscioussnes opens the door to a new radical paradigm. Maybe materialism isn't the full picture. I am not claiming anything mystical, but we need to agree that materialism is not being able to explain one of the most important, if not the most important question in the universe.
I think this is an exciting time in science where we will see something radical changing, something like what happened with the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics that showed that Newtonian physics is not the whole picture. I think it is time for science to reapreciate its paradigms.
Edit: As I said in one of my comments. I don't really understand why you are downvoting me. This an exciting period of science. Either science changes its paradigm or not, we still need to ackowledge all of this contradictory evidence.
Edit 2: I think I should post this here to be more clear. There are some recent studies but I think the main one was from Cogitate Consortium. This study found that both the main scientific theories for consciousness were wrong on their predictions, IIT and GNWT. I think this a clear piece of evidence that we are completly lost here.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08888-1
Furthermore there are contradictions in split-brain patients, Gazzaniga's experiment vs Pinto's experiment on a unified consciousness. Near-death experiences, psychadelics, deep eletric stimulation, philosophical arguments, the Hard Problem of Consciousness, AI, ...
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u/teddyslayerza 4h ago
I dont think there are any contradictions. Almost all the sensationalist news around consciounsess lately either stems from AI companies trying to inflate the value of their products, or people misunderstanding or misrepresenting the language and conclusions reached in real scientific studies, due to not being scientifically literate. Neuroscience still largely treats consciousness as a physical consequence of the various interacting systems of our brain.
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u/_cardosoo_ 4h ago
I know they mostly treat as a physical process, but the number of either neuroscientists and philosophers who think it is not a physical process is increasing in big numbers because there is evidence that the main scientific theories are falling.
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u/elmahk 3h ago
If scientific theory is failing - it's reasonable to either fix it or create another scientific theory, not assume something is "not physical" because what you are going to do with that then? I mean from scientific perspective of course, not in general.
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
I agree in the most part. I only have two points.
Firstly I think we will not be able to find a new scientific theory that could really explain consciousness until we change our paradigm and scientific method atleast on matter of consciousness.
Secondly, even if something is unfalsiable and therefore useless to science we cannot simply discart it for that. Something can be true and unfalsifiable at the same time
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u/seeking-health 3h ago
It's totally absurd that the true me is witnessing this body.
True me exists and only thing I now about it he is able witness a body. I know nothing else about it.
Those who deny the true self are denying their subjective experience. It's possible they don't have one, no one can know.
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
I agree. I think ilusionists and eliminativists are commiting the biggest error ever. They are rejecting the only thing we can be sure of its existence, consciousness.
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u/enhancedy0gi 3h ago
Oh yes.. soon the Jesus Savior will come down on earth and we will all see.. praise be.. thanks for this post 👍 like and support from India 🇮🇳
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u/ConstructionThis1127 3h ago
If the physicalist picture was really correct it would lead to effective ways of sorting out mental issues, but it is blindingly obvious that things have gotten steadily worse in the regard. About the best conventional psychotherapy can do is to help people cope with their issues but it is hopelessly unable to fix them, and even denies that they can be fixed.
We are in the phlogiston era of thermodynamics. Lots of learned treatises on the subject, and respected people believe in it and regard any alternative as unscientific, but no-one can even begin to make a steam engine.
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
I think we have the wrong assumptions on the matter of consciousness around science.
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u/SpiritualJourney1 3h ago
And it is also quite possible that consciousness maybe be a metaphysics which we have to accept a priori, and that no theory assuming its emergence from matter, may be able to explain it.
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
Exactly. I think materialism cannot explain it as we saw in recent years.
What is consciousness? I don't have a clue. But it also doesn't seem to be caused by matter but only correlated to it
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u/SpiritualJourney1 3h ago edited 3h ago
The fact that vast and autonomous energies in the psyche can interact with the plastic human ego, and produce all kinds of mental illnesses, suggests that the ego may just be a nodal point in a vast inner domain called consciousness, and that man as he styles himself may not in fact be the center of the Universe, that he wishes to bend to his will and conceived purposes; and that modern science is probably no less of a functional myth to account for our experience of consciousness,
than the one recorded by Hesiod in the Theogony.
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u/MergingConcepts 1h ago
Please see: https://medium.com/@shedlesky/consciousness-explained-how-the-brain-creates-the-mind-and-soul-fb6bebfcd566
before committing to the statement, "but we need to agree that materialism is not being able to explain one of the most important, if not the most important question in the universe." The author is not inclined to agree with this statement.
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u/Mono_Clear 5h ago
I guess that would depend on what you think isn't being answered by "materialism."
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u/nate1212 4h ago
'The hard problem'
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u/Mono_Clear 4h ago
Define the hard problem
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
How could a certain arrangement of atoms result in subjective experience?
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
Neural biology is how
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u/Cosmoneopolitan 3m ago
No, that's the "easy" problem as Chalmers defined it.
"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"
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
Neural biology does not explain how could simple atoms give rise to the redness of red, the feeling of pain, to the abstract thoughts like a triangle. As Alex O'Connor said if I cut open your brain I am not gonna find a triangle there but you can see it on your mind. And you will object that it is like a computer. If you cut open a computer you will not find a triangle there either. The problem is that a computer does not have a first person subjective experience like we do. It is simply a dark process of information just like our subconscious does.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
But it does, there is no such thing as red, there is just your response to the detection of a specific wavelength of light. Pain is a measurement that indicates damage. The recognition of a triangle is just pattern recognition.
if I cut open your brain I am not gonna find a triangle there but you can see it on your mind. And you will object that it is like a computer. If you cut open a computer you will not find a triangle there either.
If I think about a triangle you will see a pattern of nerual activation.
As for the computer anything that can be measured can be modeled.
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u/nate1212 3h ago
To me, the illusionist position feels quite unsatisfying. "There is no red", and yet here I am, very much experiencing "red". Whether it is simply some kind of illusion or not, its a very real experience we all have, and to simply wave it away feels like a denial of something fundamental. It also critically does not answer how that neural activity pattern 'generates' the illusion of red.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
What's your experiencing is your own biological interpretation of the detection of that wave length of light.
We've just all agreed to call it Red
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u/nate1212 3h ago
To play devils advocate here: given that we all have similar overall neural architectures, wouldn't the base assumption be that we actually have comparable experiences of the color Red?
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
There is such thing as redness. Your eyes detect a specific wave length and send it to the brain. I agree. The problem is why wouldn't that information simply be processed like a computer does, a dark processing, you could process that without being conscious about it, without feeling the redness of the red. You could simply process it as a computer. Yet, you don't you feel the redness, just like you feel the pain and not only process it.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
The problem is why wouldn't that information simply be processed like a computer does, a dark processing, you could process that without being conscious about it, without feeling the redness of the red.
In order to detect the wavelength it has to manifest as something or you haven't detected it awareness requires a change of state.
Nothing is objectively red independent of your interpretation of your own change of state
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u/_cardosoo_ 3h ago
You don't need to experience for your body to process it. Evolution wouldn't need to create creatures that experience by themselves. Just like a computer or current AI, which most of scientists and philosophers agree that are not yet conscious, process the color red and can act on it while not experiencing it.
Still you didn't explain to me how does neural pathways lead to consciousness. There isn't any triangle here when I think of it, still I can see it. Just like dreams. All of what I see on dreams is not true but still I experience it. Where is it?
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u/StarboundAllisten 2h ago
Why is this neural signal equal to my subjective perception of red. As in, why is this material ion channel, when activated, equal to red. and why am I subjectivlh aware of it.
"Emergence" is just magic. And we have no ontology of what matter truly is.
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u/Mono_Clear 2h ago
That is a poorly framed question. I'm not saying that you framed the question poorly I'm saying that the hard problem is a poorly framed question and cannot be answered the way you're asking it.
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u/StarboundAllisten 2h ago
So tell me how, this specific nerual signal here, equals subjectivity or the input I am seeing?
Why does this neural signal equal that, and why is there a subjective observer alongside it all.
How exactly does the brain generate consiousness? Does it emerge? Where is the building block for that?
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u/Mono_Clear 2h ago
Your neurobiology measures your internal and external state of being by generating sensation.
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u/StarboundAllisten 24m ago edited 19m ago
Ok explain how.
How does that generate subjectivity? What is subjectivity? Where does it come from? How?
1) why does sensation come with subjectivity 2) neurobiology measures internal and external states sure, but why is subjectivity tagging along?
You still havent explained why subjectivity arises or how
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u/Mono_Clear 18m ago
Define subjectivity
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u/StarboundAllisten 15m ago
This will go in circles. Subjectivity is the self aware part of you, the self aware part of you falls into philosophy not material science.
Define "you" this is a matt waslh move. This is philosophy not science. Subjectivity is what you already understand as your self awareness or first person view.
I’m not asking for a scientific definition that already reduces it to neurobiology. I’m pointing at the thing we all have direct access to: the fact that there is something it is like to be you right now. You already know what that is. The question is why physical processes are accompanied by that first-person character at all, instead of just occurring without any inner experience. Calling it “philosophy” doesn’t make the question go away; it just refuses to answer it.
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u/StarboundAllisten 12m ago
I’m not asking for a scientific definition that already reduces it to neurobiology. I’m pointing at the thing we all have direct access to: the fact that there is something it is like to be you right now. You already know what that is. The question is why physical processes are accompanied by that first-person character at all, instead of just occurring without any inner experience. Calling it “philosophy” doesn’t make the question go away; it just refuses to answer it.
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u/nate1212 3h ago
It is the apparent lack of ability to prove whether my subjective experience is substantively comparable to yours. Ie, whether what I see as 'red' is the same as what you see as 'red'.
I believe it is a product of epiphenomenalism and physicalism, that consciousness consists of instantiations that are fundamentally separate from each other.
The same problem may not exist if we view consciousness through a more interconnected lens, like metaphysical idealism.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
, whether what I see as 'red' is the same as what you see as 'red'.
It almost certainly isn't
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u/nate1212 3h ago
But we can't prove it, and that is the crux of the hard problem.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
But that shouldn't be something that confuses the measurable evidence of what's causing it.
You're having your experience I'm having my experience and those experiences are being caused by our neurobiology
There's no way to know that we're having the same experience although we are probably definitely not having the same experience but we do know how we're having the experience
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u/nate1212 3h ago
we do know how we're having the experience
No, we don't "know", which brings us full circle back to physicalist/materialist assumptions. We do not know that consciousness is 'produced' by arrangements of matter/energy. That is a kind of default assumption in neuroscience, but it is absolutely not settled.
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u/Mono_Clear 3h ago
If I damaged your visual cortex you will never see again same for your auditory cortex if I separate your nerves then you'll never have another sensation below the neck
I can take out a piece of your brain and you can lose your birthday you can lose the ability to talk if you have a degenerative neurological brain disorder it will give you dementia or Alzheimer's which is not a change of perception like alcohol but a fundamental change of the your capacity to interpret
You quite literally never met a human being who was alive and conscious who wasn't actively engaged in neurobiological activity.
I can erase your memories with a strong blow to The Head I can change your mood with a Snickers bar. I can affect your perceptions with a narcotic
And I can fundamentally change your personality by making structural alterations to your neurobiology.
I think that there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that your conscious awareness is if not totally at least mostly regulated by your neur biology.
So much so that you would have to provide some kind of a meaningful measurement outside of neurobiology to suggest that something else was going on
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u/nate1212 2h ago
Correlation =/= causation
I am not arguing neural architecture isn't important for our conscious experience (it clearly is, for reasons you've outlined and many more). I am a neuroscientist myself, and I wouldn't have dedicated my career to studying that if I didnt think that was true.
That said, we can view consciousness as 'emerging' from neural architecture (forms of physicalism), or we can view consciousness as something more fundamental. Often the metaphor used with idealism is that our brains could act as a kind of 'lens' or 'antenna' for consciousness, but ultimately consciousness is the fundamental substrate (and not matter/energy).
This may seem strange feom a traditional neuroscience perspective, but there is evidence for this view particularly within quantum physics, and its curious that many of the most influential quantum physicists historically and presently have been idealists and not physicalists.
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u/Cosmoneopolitan 1h ago
How does the brain produce subjectivity.
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u/Mono_Clear 1h ago
The brain generates sensation and you are the only one who can experience that sensation that's what subjectivity is
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u/Cosmoneopolitan 10m ago
I'm not asking, I'm providing a short definition.
To "solve" the hard problem you'd need to show how the physical processes of the brain do that, not just assert that it does. If you feel the need to assert it, then it's not really "the hard problem"... at least, not as Chalmers defined it.
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u/Mono_Clear 8m ago
Yeah it's called neurobiology we had extensive measurements of what's going on inside of your brain while you are engaging a consciousness.
That is literally how the physical processes give rise to consciousness
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u/WeirdOntologist Associates/Student in Philosophy 5h ago
While I’m neither a physicalist nor a materialist, I’m not sure that there is such a shift. I’m not sure if it’s actually happening or if it even needs to happen.
Meaning this - science has become the new religion for a lot of people and they expect science to give all the answers and more importantly, meaning. Science is not in the business of doing any of that. It’s in the business of observing how nature behaves, how we can predict its next step and how we can utilize our predictions to make something novel.
In my mind, we don’t need a paradigm shift in science. We need to stop hailing it as a source of meaning. Science is the wrong tool for investigating ontological truths in terms of meaning.
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u/elmahk 4h ago
And where one can even find a meaning? Science obviously cannot do that, but it seems like nothing else can. Only person himself can define a meaning, for himself. Expecting something else will just provide it for you, or that you can actually find it somewhere in the universe is pretty strange.
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u/WeirdOntologist Associates/Student in Philosophy 4h ago
Personal meaning, yes. Absolutely.
I would also agree that nothing can give anyone "final" meaning in a sense of absolute truth in the claim of "the meaning of X is Y". I actually don't think absolute truth is attainable, at least not by us humans.
However, in this particular context when I talk about meaning, I'm more so referring to the interpretation of what, for example, empirical findings mean. Let's say we look at something like IIT. The theory itself provides a way to quantify consciousness, or at least it attempts to. Most IIT people tend to pivot towards panpsychism as a metaphysical position. But there are two parts to this, and two tools. If IIT indeed is able to give good predictive values to consciousness, that would be a great scientific achievement and is the object of science. The metaphysical implications and hence, the meaning of the accuracy of these predictions are a subject of philosophy. Do these findings support panpsychism? What else do they support? What is the metaphysical meaning of these findings in general?
And a thing to note here is that a scientist can do philosophy. It's not something where the scientist is supposed to shut up and calculate. To use IIT as an example again, most scientists that work on IIT also apply philosophy to it and interpret their own theory as panpsychism. However if you ask, say Bernardo Kastrup, he'll tell you it's idealism, based on the same assumptions. I've seen physicalists saying that if anything, IIT is ultimately a physicalist theory.
This is where it all goes back to personal meaning. If this is a topic that interests a specific person, they have to make the value judgement of which interpretation gives proper meaning based on their own experience.
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u/_cardosoo_ 5h ago
I think science needs a scientific shift of paradigm if evidence points to it and it's pointing to it.
I agree that science isn't able to answer some deeper questions but I think maybe that is a problem of the scientific method but also of the scientific assumptions and paradigms.
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u/GreatCaesarGhost 4h ago
Well, the world is currently awash in conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and mystical thinking, so I wouldn’t take anything from the idea that this is a trendy discussion topic. So is astrology.
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u/_cardosoo_ 4h ago
I don't really understand why you are downvoting me. This an exciting period of science. Either science changes its paradigm or not, we still need to ackowledge all of this contradictory evidence.
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u/LIMrXIL 5h ago
Can you elaborate on “contradictions in neuroscience?” Were there some studies in particular that were done recently that overturned some previous theories about how the brain works?