Human Consciousness Is Metaphysical
Context
Many scientists adhere to a philosophy of Materialism, the view that everything can be explained entirely in physical terms. This includes the birth of the universe and life itself. This viewpoint has been taught in many classrooms from grade school through university and graduate school.
Materialists assert that human consciousness is the output of physical and chemical processes of one’s brain. They believe that consciousness is something the brain does versus a state that exists; that brain states must always be explained in terms of “computational or neural mechanisms” to be valid.[1] Brain states that cannot be traced to a physical mechanism, for example the quality of having a first-person experience, are considered invalid. Materialism does not accept or explain that a person has a subjective inner experience when his brain performs cognitive or behavioral functions.
However, what is becoming more apparent to neurosurgeons, is that rather than being the byproduct of processes of a physical brain, human consciousness exists in a higher plane of reality. This post suggests that something beyond Materialism is at work that explains human consciousness.
Why should you care?
In a nutshell, the answer to this question informs your entire belief system about your own intrinsic value, and your entire world view. Thus, this topic calls for curiosity and introspection which you may not have considered before.
A Definition
This post cannot definitively conclude what consciousness is, as the concept is not universally defined or agreed upon within the fields of neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Nevertheless, for the purpose of our musing, it’s necessary to attempt a definition of consciousness. Here the human consciousness that we are talking about is the subjective inward experience evoked by our senses or thoughts, and awareness of one’s own reactions, thoughts, and decisions. This set of activities is at a higher level than measurable brain processing required to interact with the physical realm, for example, seeing, hearing, speaking.
The Problem with Pure Materialism
A significant problem with Materialism is that its proponents preemptively exclude any consideration of metaphysical causes, which restricts the formulation of all their hypotheses. The points at issue are the most profoundly important to humankind. These being the cause of the start of the universe, the origination and sustentation of life on our planet, and the expressly unique quality of human consciousness, reason, and free will. For any earnest truth seeker, these are the most important questions to wrestle with and should not be restricted to a way of thinking that precludes important possible theses.
Evolution Is Not Sufficient
The theory of evolution posits that all species share a common ancestry and that they change over time by the mechanism of natural selection. The process of natural selection produces changes in existing living beings (adaptation) that results in more specialized forms over time. Most evolutionists would say consciousness is a biological trait that evolved because it provided adaptive advantages. Humans dominated the Earth in a relatively short time span on the evolutionary time horizon, which strongly suggests that human-level consciousness and thinking confer vast adaptive advantages.
Then logically we should expect other species to have similar capabilities. Yet no other species with human-level consciousness exists. Researchers might argue that perhaps other species indeed do have it, but that they cannot communicate it. This seems like a weak argument to me. Our closest supposed evolutionary relatives, the apes, are not capable of many of the conscious activities that are measurable, forgetting for a moment whether they have a subjective inner experience while doing them. They are not capable of abstract reasoning, performing math, generating their own version of language, and doing art (without being trained). While apes have similar motor capabilities as humans, such as dexterous fingers, they do not use them to express a native language, or create art the way that early humans did using natural materials that were available. In my view, this rational argument fails because there should be at least one other species we can point to with these critical advantages.
Thus, Natural Selection does not sufficiently explain why humans alone seem to be at the pinnacle of consciousness, with our ability reason, solve abstract problems, do art, perform higher math and physics, all crowned with each person having a subjective inner experience while doing them.
No Brain Region Controls “Free Will”
“Free will” here is defined as the state of being able to choose something in one’s mind. There is a majority view among scientists in general that free will does not exist as an objective thing. Arguments against free will attribute it to deterministic brain processes. This is contrary to the highly educated opinion of Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon, who authored the book The Immortal Mind. Dr. Egnor performed over a thousand surgeries on the brains of epileptic patients who were awake. While operating on the awake patient, he found that while he could trigger an involuntary movement of a limb by stimulating the corresponding area of the brain cortex, he could not find any region that when stimulated triggered the patient to decide to move a limb. Moreover he found no brain regions that generates free will.
It’s understood that neurotransmitters effect subjective feelings, or that certain areas of the brain are responsible for certain brain states (fight or flight) or capabilities (speech). But it’s also clear now that human consciousness and free will exist without a physical region of the brain being responsible for them. This speaks to an immaterial source for human consciousness.
Split Brain, Unified Consciousness
The Materialists claim that consciousness arises solely and entirely from physical brain processing. On one hand it’s true that one cannot express consciousness in the physical realm without a physical body with a functioning brain. And it is true that brain states are correlated with certain conditions in the brain (neurotransmitters, electrical epileptic seizure). On the other hand, the physical state of the brain is insufficient to explain why consciousness remains unified even after a brain’s hemispheres have been surgically cut in half.
In his book, Dr. Egnor references a patient with severe epilepsy who had seizures daily. The patient opted to have his brain surgically split in half, in a procedure called corpus callosotomy as a last resort. During the procedure the brain is cut in half by severing the corpus callosum, a “massive bundle of millions of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.”[2] The goal of this surgery was to prevent the electrical discharges from jumping from one side of the brain to the other. Dr. Egnor wondered whether such a patient would be able to act as a unified self after having the two hemispheres of the brain separated.
Well it did. Despite the patient’s brain being cut in half (very carefully!), the patient experienced no sense of split consciousness. The key finding: “Even when the brain is split in half, important aspects of the brain remain unified. Thus, the mind is something that the brain isn’t.”[3] If you wish to learn more details about this, I encourage you to read his fascinating book The Immortal Mind, by Michael Egnor & Denyse O’Leary.
Consciousness Exists After Death
Neurosurgeons and other doctors are starting to collect case evidence of patients who physically and verifiably died, were later revived and able to describe events that took place while they were dead. This includes visual and audio events that they should not have been able to observe given the state of their bodies, being dead, and in most cases having their eyes covered or taped shut.
In his book, Dr. Egnor describes a brain surgery patient who had a large aneurism in the basil artery (the main artery supplying blood to the brain), and had to undergo an extreme surgical procedure to correct it. She had to be put under general anesthesia, her body chilled to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, her heart stopped, and the blood drained from her brain before the surgeon could operate on her. [4] During the time she was medically dead, an EEG confirmed her brain activities had completely ceased. Shockingly, immediately after surgery she was able to recount what happened, including the way the operating room looked, that there were many people in the room, and the specific conversation the medical staff had about her. [5] These were verifiable facts that were confirmed with the staff, and her case was measured and documented by medical equipment at the time.
Far from a rare occurrence, Near Death Experiences (NDEs) in our modern times are becoming more common due to advances in medicine. This is gaining traction among the medical community as an area to study and measure. Her case is one of many in which patients who came back from death were conscious post-death.
These NDEs, especially those of people who recounted verifiable observations while dead, should cause us to be very curious about how this could happen while the person was dead, in particular when brain death is confirmed by multiple measures.
Key Takeaways
If you remember only a few things, consider the following:
We should be skeptical of natural selection as the explanation of human consciousness as it is insufficient as well as self-refuting.
We should reject the notion that a specific region of the brain generates free will, at least until there is actually evidence of it.
A physical brain that has been cut in half does not produce the effect it should if consciousness is produced by brain matter. The mind continues to perceive as one unit despite the physical dissection.
A brain that is dead with no measurable activity does not prevent consciousness or perceived senses such as sight and hearing from continuing. This means consciousness is not the output of brain processes
Conclusion
By implication this should cause us to look with wonder at the unique specialness of human consciousness. We should rethink our assumptions, which have been pressed upon us by cultural indoctrination that the physical realm is all there is and explains all. Moreover, we should leave an opening in our thinking, and give more credence to the spiritual realm, which has an Intelligent Designer. For those who don’t believe in God, consider that He exists, designed our very consciousness, and placed it in our physical bodies for use in the physical realm. The following verse from scripture aptly describes the realization that consciousness predates existence of the body. I hope it speaks to you:
'Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. '
Psalm 139:16 (ESV)
https://www.bible.com/bible/59/PSA.139.16.ESV
Footnotes
[1] David J. Chalmers, et al. “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness,” 2
[2]Michael Egnor & Denyse O’Leary. The Immortal Mind (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2025), 13.
[3] Egnor & O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 19.
[4] Egnor & O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 85.
[5] Egnor & O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 86-88.
