New Epistemic Deal: Praeternatural Phenomena

Research and Sense-Making
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Your opinion. There are many others. From the Gemini summary (which also summarizes a lot of Zoom conferences I’ve been in with people who study these matters professionally), there is nothing like a 400-year Western scientific tradition of studying consciousness. More like a 400-year tradition of excluding consciousness from study. Re-considering the Cartesian dualistic move and exploring what other cultural traditions had to say about these matters is one of the many available current options to serious students of these matters.

Gemini summary:

The history of Western science’s relationship with consciousness is a dramatic, centuries-long story of rejection, avoidance, and ultimate obsession. For a long time, consciousness was considered “the C-word” in polite scientific discourse—a messy, subjective topic best left to theologians and poets.

To trace its history is to watch Western science move from absolute separation (the soul vs. the body) to extreme denial (the brain as just a machine), and finally to a modern, multi-disciplinary scramble to solve what is now called “The Hard Problem.”

1. The Great Split: Descartes and the 17th Century

Before the Scientific Revolution, the study of the mind was entirely wrapped up in theological concepts of the immortal soul.

In the 1600s, René Descartes attempted to pave a way forward for the new mechanistic science without angering the Church. He proposed Substance Dualism, dividing the universe into two entirely different substances:

  • Res extensa** (Extended things):** Matter, the physical world, and the human body. This realm was purely mechanical, predictable, and could be studied by science.

  • Res cogitans** (Thinking things):** The immaterial mind, soul, and conscious experience. This realm was unquantifiable and belonged to God and philosophy.

By handing the physical body over to science and keeping consciousness in the realm of religion, Descartes allowed early physics, anatomy, and chemistry to flourish without having to worry about the subjective experience of the observer.

2. The Early Pioneers: The Late 19th Century

By the late 1800s, scientists began to wonder if the “thinking thing” could be studied using the tools of the laboratory. This era birthed experimental psychology.

  • Wilhelm Wundt (1879): Established the very first psychological laboratory in Germany. He used a method called introspection, where highly trained subjects would report their precise, immediate conscious experiences (colors, tones, feelings) when exposed to specific stimuli.

  • William James (1890): In his monumental work The Principles of Psychology, the American philosopher and psychologist famously coined the phrase “the stream of consciousness.” James argued that consciousness is not chopped up into bits, but flows like a river, constantly changing and adapting to help humans survive.

3. The Great Exile: Behaviorism and Materialism (1913–1960s)

Just as consciousness research was gaining traction, a massive scientific backlash occurred. A new generation of scientists argued that because subjective experience cannot be seen, measured, or verified by an independent third party, it has no place in objective science.

  • John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner (Behaviorism): Watson’s 1913 manifesto Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It completely redefined the field. Behaviorists argued that the human mind is a “black box.” You can measure the input (stimulus) and the output (behavior), but whatever happens inside (conscious thought) is scientifically irrelevant.

  • The Taboo: For nearly half a century, studying consciousness became a career-killer for mainstream Western scientists. It was dismissed as an unscientific illusion.

       [ STIMULUS ] ──>  [ THE BLACK BOX ]  ──> [ BEHAVIOR ]
                        (Consciousness / Ignore)

4. The Cognitive Revolution and Neuroimaging (1960s–1980s)

By the mid-20th century, the behaviorist straightjacket began to tear. The invention of the digital computer gave scientists a new metaphor for the mind: information processing.

The Cognitive Revolution proved that you could scientifically study internal mental states (like memory, attention, and language production) by treating the brain like a biological computer.

Furthermore, the late 20th century brought revolutionary medical technologies:

  • PET Scans and fMRIs: For the first time, scientists didn’t have to guess what was happening inside the “black box.” They could watch the living human brain light up in real-time as a person thought, dreamed, or perceived.

5. The Modern Era: NCC and “The Hard Problem” (1990s–Present)

The true renaissance of consciousness studies exploded in the 1990s, catalyzed by two major milestones.

Francis Crick and Christof Koch (1990)

Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the DNA double helix) decided to use his massive scientific clout to make consciousness a legitimate field of study. Alongside neuroscientist Christof Koch, he launched the hunt for the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC). The goal was purely empirical: find the exact specific brain states, neurons, and synchronized electrical firings that correspond to a specific conscious experience (like seeing the color red).

David Chalmers and “The Hard Problem” (1995)

While the hunt for the NCCs was booming, Australian philosopher David Chalmers threw a wrench into the gears. He divided the field into two categories:

  • The Easy Problems: Figuring out how the brain integrates information, focuses attention, or controls behavior. These are “easy” because they can eventually be explained by mapping the brain’s biological wiring.

  • The Hard Problem: Why should all that biological wiring feel like anything from the inside? Why do we have a qualitative, subjective experience (called qualia) instead of just being blind, automated biological robots (or “zombies”)?

Where Science Stands Today

Today, Western scientific interest in consciousness is at an all-time high, fractured into competing, mind-bending theories that attempt to solve Chalmers’s Hard Problem:

  • Integrated Information Theory (IIT): Suggests that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe (akin to mass or electrical charge) that emerges anywhere information is highly integrated.

  • Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT): Treats the brain like a theater; consciousness is whatever information is brought into the “spotlight” of the stage, broadcasting it to the rest of the unconscious brain.

  • Panpsychism / Idealism: A growing minority of scientists and philosophers are moving backward to move forward, questioning the materialist paradigm entirely and suggesting that consciousness might not be created by the brain at all, but is instead the fundamental fabric of reality itself.

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You can’t pick and choose which science you like.

UFOs - apparently unscientific.

Neuroscience pointing clearly towards the conclusion that there is no free will - also unscientific.

Neuroscience in general - scientific

The only problem science can’t solve is the question of why consciousness exists at all, if matter is the only thing that exists. This question is unanswerable, which is why physicalism is incoherent, but it does not justify the conclusion that brains aren’t even necessary.

The solution is simple. All things have consciousness.

Trying to bestow some magical quality to things from nothing is doomed from the start. The best you can get is do some elaborate world-building akin to someone describing how the individual feathers of angels wings interact so they can push along the orbit of the planets. Effectively stacking real science on top of illusory foundations.

If you want to understand what consciousness is and why it arises you can consider atoms.

Did they arise suddenly, distinct from everything else?

No, they arose from interactions of subatomic particles, which later bind together through elementary forces. They are not ‘separate’ from the energy they arose from, but rather condensed excitations of that energy; stable systems mapped by force boundaries. You can zoom right into them in the hope of pin-pointing some essential kernel that distinguishes them from everything else, only - like your approach to consciousness - find that approach is doomed to failure.

Few can imagine universal consciousness, just as few can understand how free will does not exist.

Ironically those two concepts are very prevalent in tribal societies and ancient civilisations.

Humanity has managed to shift further from the truth, deluded by religions intended to control, whilst advancing in areas of understanding that serve to help control nature. Science did the latter, but I’d argue its deepest truths are actually reflective of, and perhaps rooted in, ancient wisdom.

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No it isn’t. It is an objective fact about reality, supported by vast amounts of solid empirical data.

There can be no synthesis of science and spirituality if people refuse to take science seriously, and that is what you are doing.

No. You are collapsing the the easy problems and the hard problems into one. There are some fundamental questions science can’t answer. These include why there is any such thing as subjectivity (the hard problem), how consciousness interacts with matter (the details of the causal relationship), and how, why and when it evolved. But in terms of correlations – of understanding which parts of the brain are responsible for which parts of conscious experience and cognitive function, we really do have a vast amount of information. This is the result of decades of instensive study of the relationships between brain injuries/diseases and their precise effects. For example, scientists can now use an MRI to see exactly where a stroke has damaged, and use this information to reliably predict what the effects will be.

That is not just my opinion, is it?

What do you think brains are for?

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None of these work. The first two cannot explain why consciousness exists at all – they do not offer a solution to the hard problem. Panpsychism and idealism have the opposing problem: they cannot coherently explain what brains are for.

Here is the truth:

There are large numbers of people who are willing to accept that brains are necessary for consciousness (they accept the neuroscience). And there are large numbers of people who are willing to accept the reality of the hard problem (that no amount of brain can account for subjectivity). However, the number of people who are willing to accept both of these things is tiny. This is not because they both cannot be true at the same time – nobody has even seriously tried to defend that position. So why do so few people accept both? The answer is that most people don’t give a **** about the truth, and much prefer to go on believing whatever takes their fancy. The physicalists don’t want to accept the hard problem, because that means giving up their “dismiss all woo without thinking about it” card. And people like you don’t want to accept neuroscience (necessity of brains) because you want to go on believing in free-floating consciousness (which opens the door for life after death, Gods, and all sorts of other things).

Both are true. The reason 2PC is unlike the other positions you’ve listed is that it accepts that both are true, and then tries to build a model of reality consistent with those facts. Very few other people have even tried this, let alone succeeded.

The person who has come closest is Thomas Nagel, but his theory is incomplete (and he admits this).

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And I don’t. I always start from the mainstream scientific position, and if I disagree with anything then I give rigorous reasons. You, on the other hand, pick and choose.

UFOs - apparently unscientific.

That is correct. The mainstream scientific consensus is that we have no evidence for UFOs.

Neuroscience pointing clearly towards the conclusion that there is no free will - also unscientific.

And I devote considerable attention to explaining exactly why this conclusion is unsafe. I don’t just declare it to be wrong.

Free Will | Two-Phase Cosmology

Reconciling Free Will with Neuroscience

Neuroscience is often taken to challenge conscious agency. Libet-style experiments reveal neural precursors that appear before subjects report forming an intention, which has been interpreted as evidence that the brain “decides” first and consciousness merely observes. This interpretation assumes a sharp, punctate moment of decision and a clear boundary between unconscious cause and conscious effect.

In the storm model, there is no single collapse point. Instead, consciousness unfolds as a continuous field of local micro-collapses distributed across the specious present (see the storm model of consciousness). Neural precursors and the felt moment of intention are two complementary views of the same dynamic pattern. Readiness potentials reflect the gradual accumulation of correlated neural activity, which raises the likelihood of particular micro-collapses. This activity belongs to the scaffolding of possibility rather than the determination of outcomes.

What becomes lived action is shaped by the agent’s valuations, attention, and predictive signals, which modulate the storm over a short temporal window. Influence manifests as subtle shifts in micro-collapse rates and stabilities, not as a last-second command. In this framework, the apparent paradox of Libet-type data dissolves: early neural activity corresponds to the forward-evolving preparation of possibilities, while conscious influence is distributed and time-integrated. The felt moment of intention emerges from the accumulation of these modulations, producing a stable selection that appears instantaneous from the inside. Agency is neither mysterious nor mechanical. It does not violate physical law, nor is it random noise. It is a structural property of systems capable of maintaining a unified self and generating incompatible valuations across live possibilities. A local embodiment event occurs when the storm, shaped by these valuations and the system’s coherence, tips one branch into actuality. Responsibility follows naturally: the pattern of modulation executed by the agent actively contributes to the selection of the real trajectory.

This perspective also clarifies the distinction between a human and a p-zombie. A genuine subject participates in the storm that resolves possibilities into lived outcomes. A hypothetical zombie may display behaviour resembling choice, but it lacks the internal patterning that produces realisation. Its actions are mere correlations in physical processes, not the work of a system stabilising a branch of reality.

In sum, Libet-type findings do not undermine free will. They reveal the preparatory dynamics through which possibilities are structured prior to embodiment. Consciousness is not a passive observer arriving too late; it is the selective process by which events take form, the mechanism that transforms potential into lived experience.

The same teleology which explains how consciousness could have evolved, also explains how free will is possible. In effect, both processes are retrocausal. They both involve selecting whole timelines from Phase 1, instead of temporally-forward causality. This is what I call “praeternatural” – it is not just a placeholder for future science, but an entirely different sort of causality (what Jung called “synchronicity” in the broad sense of something which is going on all around us all the time, but usually hidden).