My claim is that the reason for the seemingly insoluble mysteries of the origin and true nature of what we call ‘consciousness’ and ‘life,’ has to be found in the persistence and insistence on a philosophical commitment to a strictly mechanistic and naturalistic understanding of reality and that never allows itself vaster vistas, or is much too afraid of looking beyond this narrow horizon. The background theoretical assumption for the origin of consciousness is always the same: the mind-brain identity theory. It starts from the unquestioned premise that it is the brain that produces consciousness. Another unquestioned methodological approach to life is that we always try to describe it in terms of mechanistic processes, abstracting from any psychological dimension and expunging from the outset any sentience and feeling, only to wonder why and how these could emerge from dead matter. In fact, the lack of any tangible progress and the failure of this approach to the problem of consciousness is now slowly but steadily becoming ever more visible. There is now mounting evidence pointing against a strict naturalistic interpretation of mind and consciousness. Though this new information is still largely ignored because of ideological reasons, this lack of progress is convincing some scientists and philosophers of mind that the purely naturalistic viewpoint can’t be exhaustive and needs to be revised. To a lesser degree but, perhaps, as a non-negligible factor, some were also influenced by scepticism towards neo-Darwinism as the ultimate paradigm for a materialistic non-teleological account of evolution.

A growing dissatisfaction towards physicalism as the ultimate word in the studies of consciousness and evolution is growing even among intellectuals traditionally loyal to a materialistic Western and analytical philosophical tradition. While material monism is still the dominant view, the idea that a strict mechanistic and intellectual understanding of the world and Nature is the only pathway to truth is becoming increasingly unconvincing. What was once an almost insignificant intellectual minority has now grown into a visible splinter group, though still not a majority, let alone a homogeneous representation. Nevertheless, it is to be expected that as time passes, the alternatives to physicalism will become more vocal and will receive more attention and recognition, reaching a critical mass that, at some point, will make ignoring it an impossibility.

Indeed, a clear symptom that shows how Western philosophy is rediscovering its own roots is the revival of old metaphysical worldviews like philosophical idealism, pantheism, panentheism, panpsychism, cosmopsychism, substance dualism, substance monism, and further developments or modifications of them. This variety of non-physicalist frameworks, spanning throughout the philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, cognitive sciences, neuroscience, and psychology, constitute an impressive trend toward old and new ontologies describing our place in the universe.

However, this philosophical renaissance isn’t devoid of problems either. These purely intellectual theories, speculations, and conjectures, are too much based on a Western scientific, rationalistic, and third-person approach. I claim that this is the root cause of many of the inconsistencies and paradoxes that question their validity.

It is at this juncture that I would like to kick in with a philosophical project that, at least potentially, could go beyond mere philosophy and lead to a different practical approach in science and, ultimately, to the understanding of our true and intimate nature of human beings and the meaning of existence.

I propose that these apparent inconsistencies arise because we often fail to view reality in its integrality and believe certain aspects to be necessarily mutually exclusive, rather than recognizing them as diverse but complementary elements of a broader cosmology that unifies them into an integral theory of consciousness, matter, life, and mind. However, to grasp the integral structure that underpins these varied theoretical frameworks, we must first identify some of their common limitations.

Firstly, the Western philosophy of mind must be more open to its Eastern counterpart. The fact that the Asian tradition was mainly a first-person contemplative approach, not a third-person scientific and analytical understanding of reality, doesn’t make it less valuable. To the contrary, we must understand it as a necessary complement to the present rationalistic mindset that still affects Western metaphysics.

Secondly, the low-dimensional metaphysical paradigms that assume a purely physical, or purely mental or, at best, the binary matter-mind dual-substance stance, together with the conflation of the mind and consciousness categories must be reconsidered. This ‘dimensional reduction’ is one of the main crippling factors that prevented further progress.

Thirdly, in panpsychism and various forms of idealism where reality’s foundation is considered mind-like or consciousness-like, the nature of this universalization as a ‘cosmic Mind,’ ‘universal Mind,’ or ‘Mind at large,’ as A. Huxley termed it in 1954, remains largely unaddressed. The Mind with capital letter M, is often equated with an anthropomorphic human-like rational and analytic mind. Or, worse, it becomes an instinctive and blind mind or a will devoid of telos and intelligence like Spinoza or Schopenhauer assumed. However, assuming to the contrary that it could be a trans-rational mind and positing the existence of a supraconscious, in addition to the subconscious, could lead us to a very different and more exhaustive picture of reality.

Fourthly, in the above-mentioned frameworks, the evolutionary perspective is scarcely addressed, if not entirely absent. What is evolution, and what is its function and purpose from a metaphysical standpoint? Accepting evolution as a physical fact of natural history, as well as acknowledging a non-physical substrate inherent in the material universe, necessitates a paradigm that explains the relationship between the two. The emergence of a supposedly trans-physical consciousness and immaterial mind within the physical evolutionary context has been considered by only a few thinkers, such as T. de Chardin in his cosmic theology, J. Gebser in his historical view of the emergence of the ‘structures of consciousness,’ or in occultism like R. Steiner’s Anthroposophy, but remains a largely unexplored philosophical domain. Looking upon biological evolution not only in terms of evolving organisms but also evolving souls, allows us to see life from a perspective that opens new vistas.

I aim to develop an integral framework that shows how, once we take off these ‘reductive glasses,’ everything finds its place in a harmonious grand vision where the previous paradoxes naturally disappear. It is not just a philosophical analytic but also an intuitive approach that expands these ideas into a theory of universal consciousness grounded in a monistic, panentheistic, teleological, spiritual evolutionary emergentist metaphysical cosmology. A cosmology based on a multi-dimensional and trans-rational ontology of universal planes of existence. This extension offers greater explanatory power for addressing issues in contemporary natural philosophy and science, particularly in evolutionary biology and consciousness studies, thereby providing a broader platform for reconciling science and spirituality.

My starting point is largely inspired by the metaphysics of the Indian mystic, poet, and philosopher Sri Aurobindo who developed an integral cosmology on some of these lines, with one of the most comprehensive first-person mystical accounts of reality that includes the evolutionary process from a trans-rational perspective. However, Sri Aurobindo’s cosmology is rooted in an Indian spiritual tradition to which the Western philosophy of mind, especially that rooted in the analytic tradition, might struggle to relate. Nonetheless, if appropriately translated into a modern scientific and philosophical language, his ontology can greatly enrich the contemporary Western approaches to consciousness studies with a new light, furnishing a conceptual platform that can enlarge them to a new synthesis, and building a bridge between East and West, science and spirituality.

Thus, the project I’m working on will, hopefully, make this synthesis.

In a sense, I already did delineate a first sketch in my book “Spirit calls Nature.” There you will find “a comprehensive guide to science and spirituality, consciousness and evolution in a synthesis of knowledge.”

However, I’m working on another version that will reformulate this synthesis of knowledge around a collection of peer-reviewed papers that I have published in different journals and with a few other articles to come.

Here is a brief recap of the papers published so far.

In an article, I point out how neuroscientific evidence does not point at the mind-brain identity theory so unambiguously as commonly believed. On the contrary, a long list of neurological aspects and their phenomenology suggest how several brain functions can be best accommodated inside a transmissive paradigm rather than a generative one. This led me to write “An evidence-based critical review of the mind-brain identity theory.” A video presentation of this can be found here.

The same can be said about some dogmas in biology. For example, the idea that biology has finally falsified vitalism–that is, the existence of some no better-defined immaterial or subtle element that distinguishes living from non-living matter–is commonly taken as an unquestioned fact. But the truth of the matter is that biology simply ignores this hypothesis and posits its non-existence a priori. Whereas there a many good reasons to think otherwise. To know why, take a look at my article “Vitalism and cognition in a conscious universe.”

For some time, I was busy with the question relating to free will. As a physicist, I couldn’t resist the temptation to ask whether quantum mechanics could have something to do with consciousness. I ended up realizing that indeed, it has, but not in the sense people usually think of the subject. Here also we must widen our perspective and see the brain not as the source or ‘generator’ of consciousness, but as an instrument and individuation of a universal consciousness. Then “Quantum Indeterminism, Free Will, and Self-Causation” begin to make sense. From this, I was able to extend this view with a follow-up article on “quantum indeterminacy and libertarian panpsychism” that not only illustrates how quantum randomness can be regarded as a ‘backdoor’ for free agency in an otherwise seemingly strictly deterministic clockwork universe, but also how this can lead to a theory of universal consciousness, that is, a form of libertarian panpsychism.

While, if you are more interested in the question of how the Eastern metaphysical thought could be bridged with Western philosophical and scientific approaches, you may like reading what I call the ‘integral cosmology’ of Sri Aurobindo from the perspective of consciousness studies: “The Integral Cosmology of Sri Aurobindo: An Introduction from the Perspective of Consciousness Studies.”

On what am I working now?

Currently, I’m trying to find a journal to submit for peer-review an article on the “Nature and Origin of Language in Abhinavagupota and Sri Aurobindo.” Actually, the manuscript is in a preprint format on PhilPapers here. Those who follow me may recall how I outlined their vision of the nature of language also in a two-part series of posts here and here. This is closely related to another important aspect that implies a shift of paradigm not only in linguistics but in all sciences. For example, it sees modern speculations about the coming age of artificial general intelligence (AGI) from an entirely different perspective. Therefrom originated my second manuscript seeking for publishers entitled “No Qualia? No Meaning (and no AGI!).” You can find the manuscript here. The kernel is that language is the translation into symbols of a cognitive process that doesn’t take place in the brain but is beyond the brain. If so, the natural conclusion is that an agent’s semantic understanding of a text, or of the environment and the world, can’t be achieved by an AI system if it isn’t also conscious, no matter how complicated and powerful it might be. No consciousness —> no semantics —> no AGI. Several other consequences for natural sciences are discussed as well.

Another project on which I’m working is an essay supposed to furnish a birds-eye view of the overall vision. It is a manuscript of about 8-9,000 words (almost mission impossible!) entitled “An Integral Monism for Theories of Universal Consciousness.” I hope to find a way to get it published in a peer-reviewed journal, which I’m still looking for. Not an easy task because its scope is so broad that it doesn’t fit in most academic periodicals that usually are highly specialized. Moreover, it is hard to find an open door where these metaphysical speculations aren’t rejected outright even before the review process.

Once these last two papers are accepted and freely available, my next step will be to write a book that explains and reprints all the works mentioned-above embedding them in a single volume, and which will make them more accessible to a broader audience without a technical background. I hope this book will furnish a comprehensive vision of what, I believe, will become the post-material scientific and spiritual perspective of reality, life, and consciousness of the future.

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Let me end with the following conclusive notice.

With my PhD in physics, I could have pursued an academic career. In fact, to some extent, I was already doing so. I described this in more detail here. Among other reasons that impelled me to give up my past professional life was that these kinds of topics are almost impossible to pursue inside an academic environment. Therefore I became what is called an “independent scholar”—that is, someone who has professional training but isn’t backed by an institution with research funds.

While leaving the cozy protections of institutional structures has allowed me to express myself in complete freedom, the major hurdle this project is now encountering isn’t so much the enormous amount of time and energy one must invest (this was expected, and isn’t really an issue when you are passionate about something), but is much more the financial burden. Publishing articles in academic journals as an independent scholar who has no access to grants or to any funding a normal university guarantees to its researchers, can be extremely expensive. Moreover, I don’t want my research to be behind a paywall. Unfortunately, most publishers do not allow research articles to be open access. The author has to pay an open-access charge to make them freely available. For example, publishing the article on the mind-brain identity emptied my pockets by about $2900!

Therefore, if you find value in my project and wish to support it, you can make a financial contribution with…

or…

Meanwhile, to get a glimpse of my approach and, of course, also about other topics I’m ruminating on, you might like to read through the blog posts of my Substack newsletters.

For other topics not related to consciousness studies, especially in quantum physics and my past work as a postdoc, you can browse through my ResearchGate page.

Or, finally, you can simply follow me on Twitter or on Bluesky.

I hope that helps in clarifying what I’m working on. For any further questions, feel free to ask (marco dot masi at gmail dot com).

Thank you for your attention.