Conscious awareness is fundamental

Physicist Dean Radin writes: "If the paradigm of reductive materialism does not easily accommodate the multiple challenges of consciousness, then what paradigm would? We need a structure of knowledge that does little to no violence to reductive materialism, and yet does allow for, and even predicts, the various consciousness anomalies. I believe there is such a structure, and surprisingly it only requires an adjustment to a single assumption—from consciousness as an epiphenomenon of brain activity to fundamental.

"To illustrate why this relatively simple shift in assumption is compatible with the existing scientific paradigm, imagine knowledge as a pyramid. The bottom layer of the pyramid is, in accordance with a materialistic doctrine, physics. Above that is chemistry, then biology, neuroscience, and psychology at the top. Somewhere in the upper tier of this pyramid conscious awareness is said to magically appear. Reductive materialism assumes that phenomena that naturally fall within each layer of the pyramid permeate all layers above it, but often by being absorbed into and emerging into new forms. Thus, electrons are of central importance in physics, but they also exist in new, more complex structures in chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and so on. Within this paradigm, understanding how conscious awareness can be anything other than brain activity is nearly impossible.

"While quantum physics, which is located at the very bottom of the physics layer, allows for nonlocal connections and events that take place outside of spacetime, that that layer is relevant to brain processing is currently a highly contentious idea. As quantum biology matures, perhaps processes that support a “quantum brain” will be found, and that will open a crack toward the idea of nonlocal forms of consciousness. In turn, nonlocal consciousness will lessen the anomalous status of the consciousness clouds.

"But a quantum brain still has a problem: it fails to account for qualia. This is why an increasing number of scientists and scholars are beginning to embrace ideas like panpsychism, neutral monism, or idealism. Within those frameworks, conscious awareness does not arise or emerge from lower levels; it just is.

"And in that spirit, imagine our existing knowledge pyramid placed on a new bottom layer. Let us call that layer awareness. This is imagined to be a primordial “substance” that is prior to—i.e. it transcends—spacetime, energy and matter. Physics as we know it, including quantum physics, emerges from this awareness layer, so the power of reductionist explanations remains intact. And just as electrons permeate all layers above physics, consciousness would permeate all levels about itself.

"From this perspective, genius, savants, and survival and psychic phenomena all begin to make sense because the one feature they all share is a means by which consciousness transcends spacetime. The way that consciousness manifests at each layer in the pyramid differs depending on how it is included in ever-increasing complexity and structures, just like electrons. But its essential nature—awareness unbound by spacetime constraints—remains.

"An important feature of this revised knowledge pyramid is that all existing scientific disciplines remain intact. There is no need to throw away any textbooks because within each layer all previously vetted information is still completely valid. We have a new underlying metaphysical assumption upon which everything sits, but for most practical purposes existing disciplinary knowledge will not need to radically change. Indeed, the primary change would be the accommodation of effects that are otherwise excluded because of the assumption that physics, rather than awareness, is the foundation on which science rests. This model is compatible with all mystical and esoteric traditions (Huxley, 1972). It provides a path for bridging science and spirituality."

Dean Radin, “Reductive Materialism Explains Everything, Except for Two Small Clouds,” Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 327-341). AAPS. Kindle Edition.

Huxley, A. (1972). The perennial philosophy. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press.