We often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder: that it is a human and social construct, rather than something that exists objectively in the world, like stones, buildings, and mountains “out there.”

Indeed, what appears beautiful to me may not evoke any aesthetic response in others. The appreciation of a painting, a musical composition, a sculpture, living creatures, or even the non-living forms of Nature can evoke profoundly different feelings and aesthetic perceptions in each of us.

Yet there are things that almost all of us recognize as beautiful, or as pleasurable to contemplate, or at least as something that we would not normally describe as ugly. A rose, for example, with its intense colors and complex structure, seems to possess a beauty that transcends individual preference.

Why do certain forms, patterns, and rhythms appear universally appealing? Is beauty merely a projection of the human mind, or does it reveal something deeper about the structure of reality itself?

The beauty of flowers has always inspired artists across cultures and throughout history to capture their appearance in paintings and other forms of artistic expression. However, the modern naturalist, especially those who view Nature through the lens of evolutionary biology, would reject this interpretation. From this perspective, beauty is not an intrinsic property of the natural world but rather the outcome of adaptive processes shaped by natural selection. It is a matter of genetics, evolutionary functions, reproductive strategies, and survival advantages. The colors, forms, and fragrances of flowers, for example, are not there because they are beautiful in themselves, but because they serve biological functions: attracting pollinators, facilitating reproduction, and increasing the chances of transmitting their genetic pool.

Consider, for example, the feathers of a goose. Their beauty lies in their texture and elegant arrangement; the delicate layering of each feather, the precision of their structure, and the symmetry of their plumage can evoke a sense of aesthetic awe.

But the materialist will quickly point out that we should not “anthropomorphize” Nature. There is nothing inherently beautiful or poetic in these features. They are the result of millions of years of natural selection, shaped by survival and reproductive pressures. Feathers evolved for functions such as flight, insulation, and protection, while also playing roles in species recognition, communication, and sexual selection.

We should therefore refrain from attributing beauty and harmony to Nature, just as we should refrain from seeing aims or purposes in its phenomena. From this perspective, there is no beauty, no intention, and no purpose. There are only the expressions of evolutionary adaptations that enhanced survival and reproductive success.

Maybe. But the conviction that everything is ultimately only the expression of blind Darwinian natural processes is itself a metaphysical assumption, a hypothesis, a conjecture that appeals to the physicalist mind because it aligns with a particular philosophical preference.

Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that artists throughout history and across cultures have attempted to reproduce or imitate, through their works, something they apprehend, though not always comprehend. Although the mind is limited to the perception of superficial appearances, something within us seems capable of capturing an indefinable harmony and complexity in Nature experienced as a distant yet concrete call of principles embedded in the deeper structures of reality itself.

Is this, too, merely an instinct shaped by the demands of survival and reproduction?

Even a simple river flowing through a tiny forest seems to reflect something that goes beyond a mere blind and aimless chain of causes and effects. The fading green of the trees, the water dancing over stones, and the all-embracing canopy of leaves suggest to me something more than just a mechanism for preserving the selfish gene.

But one can perceive a mixture of beauty and decadence also in non-natural, human-made artifacts. Venice is known for its architecture, its labyrinth of canals, and the reflections shimmering on the water. Yet not everybody appreciates its aging and decaying buildings, its many dirty streets, or the chaos of tourists during the high season. Nonetheless, it has inspired artists, poets, and dreamers for centuries. I guess that this has less to do with its outer appearance and more with what the atmosphere of the place evokes: a past society without cars and the noise of machines, where the rhythms of life were more closely aligned with that of the soul.

So, what is beauty?

Well, I think the answer depends on our philosophical preferences and, most of the time, on our often unconscious metaphysical commitments.

I prefer to take the point of view of Plotinus. For Plotinus, beauty is the manifestation of a deeper metaphysical order. Physical beauty arises when matter is shaped by an inner spiritual light, reflecting the otherwise unintelligible harmony of the higher realm. It is the soul that recognizes in the beauty of physical forms something of its own nature. Beauty is a kind of remembrance and longing for a divine origin, drawing the soul upward from the visible world toward the contemplation of the Intellect (Nous) and ultimately toward the ineffable source of all beauty, the One. Beauty is therefore not simply something the mind projects onto the world; it is a trace of a higher reality and quality shining through the structures of the world, and that the human art attempts to capture and reproduce within the limits of its own forms of expression.

Subscribe now

What practical use is there in philosophers debating fundamental questions such as the meaning of existence, consciousness, truth, God, or the afterlife, other than filling libraries with books that few people will ever read? Humanity has grappled with these issues for thousands of years without reaching definitive answers. Philosophy often seems to generate more questions than solutions, making it appear intellectually stimulating but ultimately unproductive. Consequently, many people believe it is better to pursue disciplines that offer concrete results, arguing that science, engineering, medicine, or business provide more reliable paths to knowledge and human progress than what is often dismissed as inconclusive philosophical navel-gazing—precisely the kind of material you will find in this Substack.

Unfortunately, this mindset has also permeated educational systems. Although philosophy receives greater attention in some countries than in others, it has generally become a more marginal discipline within modern education. Based on conversations with teachers from diverse educational backgrounds and nationalities, my prevailing perception is that philosophy is often regarded worldwide as secondary and less valuable, particularly when compared with STEM subjects.

After all, who would argue that a third-grader should spend time becoming acquainted with the intricacies of Aristotle, Plato, or Kant rather than learning to code in Python, use ChatGPT, and master the latest AI tools? Why should a student spend time debating Plato’s theory of forms when that same time could be devoted to learning financial literacy, or digital marketing—skills that appear to offer a more direct path to employment and economic success? Who would choose to spend a school lesson analyzing whether reality is an illusion or whether free will exists when students could instead learn how to build an app, program a robot, manage investments, or use artificial intelligence to increase their productivity? In an increasingly utilitarian and materialistic society, philosophy is often perceived as intellectual hair-splitting and pointless theorizing that leads only to empty debates and abstract speculation disconnected from practical realities.

I would even contend that many philosophers themselves have been influenced by this bias. In particular, the analytic philosophy that developed during the last century, reaching its peak in the positivist tradition and leaving a significant legacy that continues to influence philosophy today, often developed an almost visceral aversion to anything vaguely metaphysical. Fortunately, times are changing, and a more open-minded attitude toward existential and spiritual questions is gradually reemerging. However, these developments remain largely on the margins and have not substantially altered the broader picture: a kind of autoimmune disorder within philosophy itself, in which the discipline celebrates one part of its own intellectual heritage while attempting to conceal or dismiss another part almost with a sense of embarrassment.

But what I would like to defend here is not some esoteric school of thought or a particular philosophical tradition. Rather, it is the idea that philosophy still has a meaningful role to play in a modern, pragmatic, and finance-driven world. The deeper question is: what do we really mean by “useful” and “pragmatic”? In a society where usefulness is often measured exclusively by economic value or by the ability to produce tangible objects in the short term, such as cars, skyscrapers, computers, or rockets, anything that does not immediately generate profit or material output is easily dismissed as “useless.”

Paradoxically, we then blame people for lacking critical thinking and moral and ethical foundations, and we blame society and political movements for a dwindling sense of equality, democracy, freedom, human rights, and justice. We wonder why people are experiencing a lack of meaning and direction in their lives, while many struggle to distinguish science from pseudoscience, fall into the most extreme conspiracy theories, deny climate change, or even believe that the Earth is flat. We lament their inability to formulate clear concepts and their reluctance to engage with difficult or uncomfortable questions.

But who were the first figures to seriously engage with these questions? Financiers, politicians, engineers, or CEOs? No. Quite the opposite: especially in the modern era, the financial and industrial complex, together with many of the institutions and forces that shape public life, has often resisted these ideals rather than championed them.

Was it the people who eventually took to the streets to demand their rights? Yes, in many cases, but those movements were often preceded by generations of philosophical reflection that first articulated these very principles.

What about Plato’s The Republic or Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, with their profound reflections on justice, ethics, virtue, and the ideal state? What about Voltaire, who championed freedom of thought and religious tolerance? Or Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill, whose contributions shaped ideas of equality, popular sovereignty, democracy, education, individual freedom, and women’s rights? Even much more controversial figures, such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, have profoundly influenced—and continue to shape—our understanding and critique of economic inequality, social justice, morality, and values. More recently, we have been rediscovering figures like Hannah Arendt, whose critique of totalitarianism now sounds remarkably prophetic.

So, it was the supposedly “useless” philosophers who, throughout history, were often the first to articulate and defend these values—not heads of state driven by immediate utility or scientists focused on technological achievement. Why? Because philosophical reflection, and perhaps the deeper insights it can inspire, allows us to view the world from a different perspective and to envision alternative possibilities. A different, and potentially better, way of organizing human life.

Herein lies the “utility” of philosophy. Yet we continue to overlook and belittle the role that education itself plays in cultivating precisely these capacities. Modern pedagogy often emphasizes STEM subjects, rationality, and analytical thinking in the hope that they will shape young minds capable of better judgment and critical thinking. And, to a large extent, this approach does succeed. However, it primarily exercises what, using modern terminology, we might call “left-brain thinking.” It reflects the same underlying tendency that has contributed to the marginalization of continental philosophy, which explores fundamental questions about human existence, consciousness, meaning, and values, while placing analytic philosophy—with its emphasis on logical analysis, language, and the foundations of knowledge—on a higher pedestal. That is why I consider philosophers themselves historically responsible for their own marginalization within an educational system that struggles to make room for more holistic, intuitive, and integrative forms of “right-brain thinking.” Yet, the idea of teaching philosophy from an early age is not new; it has already been shown to be both feasible and beneficial. We ask the younger generation to develop critical thinking and conceptual clarity while, at the same time, sending them the subliminal message that the very discipline that helps cultivate these abilities is nothing more than an almost worthless remnant of the past.

Philosophy still matters more than ever, especially in a pragmatic age. The discipline that helped shape civilization has been pushed to the margins, even though it is precisely what a world obsessed with utility needs most: the capacity to think deeply, question assumptions, and imagine alternative possibilities—the very capacities that have always driven human progress and changed the world.

If you find my work valuable, I would greatly appreciate your support. Explore more of my work and discover my books and courses.

Visit my Shop 🛒

You can also help me continue this journey by buying me one or more coffees.

Fuel My Research ☕

And, you can…

Subscribe now

Thank you for being part of this journey! 🙏

Can a civilization built on extraction and domination develop a new relationship with the living world—one based not on controlling Nature, but on participating in its regenerative processes? And if the biosphere possesses remarkable capacities for renewal, how much damage can it absorb before those capacities are overwhelmed?

One of the greatest challenges, and a frequently underappreciated fact, is that altering a complex system often leads to one-way changes, crossing thresholds and tipping points beyond which there is no return.

For example, suppose that, by some miracle, we completely stop emitting greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Even such a drastic measure would not make the greenhouse effect of past emissions disappear. Because once these gases are in the atmosphere they will stay there for centuries. They will not disappear when emissions stop, and will remain in the Earth system, continuing to influence global temperatures, ocean chemistry, and climate patterns long after the original emissions occurred. Even if humanity achieves rapid decarbonization, the planet will continue to experience the delayed effects of past emissions, including intolerable heat waves, devastating floods, rising sea levels, long-term ocean warming and acidification, and persistent disruptions to ecosystems. Some components of the Earth system may cross thresholds beyond which change becomes self-reinforcing, even if we stop immediately all ecologically harmful activities. Reducing the cause of a disturbance does not necessarily reverse the effects. The climate system has memory, and some responses unfold over decades, centuries, or even millennia. Rapid decarbonization can greatly reduce future damage, but it cannot erase the physical consequences of past emissions.

We are now surpassing the 1.5°C warming threshold above pre-industrial levels, entering a period of increasingly severe climatic disruption. Even if we stop emission we will stay at 1.5°C for generations to come. But most likely we will go far beyond this and reach 3°C warming. In a 3°C warming world, extreme heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires would become far more frequent and severe, affecting billions of people and straining food, water, and energy systems. And there will be no way back.

Thus, the real issue is not merely how we can create a world in which clean energy replaces fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions are halted, and the barbaric exploitation of Nature comes to an end. This is undoubtedly the most urgent and pressing challenge facing humanity today. Yet, in the longer term, the deeper question is how we can restore the disrupted balance of the Earth system without waiting for the processes of Nature to unfold over geological timescales. How can a civilization that thinks in decades respond adequately to changes unfolding over centuries? Or will humanity have to accept a future in which we merely adapt to an increasingly hostile natural environment?

However, there is hope on the horizon. This doom-and-gloom scenario is based on our current understanding of how complex systems behave. These predictions may prove to be overly pessimistic: Nature might possess a greater capacity for self-regeneration and recovery than we have assumed. Could it be that the regenerative capacities of the biosphere are far greater than we currently imagine?

Again and again, Nature has surprised scientists with its ability to recover from disturbances that once seemed catastrophic and irreversible. Ecosystems devastated by volcanic eruptions, industrial exploitation, species loss, or even nuclear accidents have in some cases rebounded with a speed and creativity that defied expert expectations. There are many cases where ecosystems recovered in ways that scientists either did not predict at all, or predicted would take far longer.

Here are a few notable examples.

The Return of Life Around Chernobyl: After the 1986 nuclear accident, many expected the region to remain a biological wasteland for centuries. While radiation certainly caused damage, the removal of intensive human activity allowed wildlife populations to rebound dramatically. Wolves, lynx, elk, beavers, and numerous bird species expanded throughout the exclusion zone. The area became an unexpected experiment showing that, for many species, the absence of humans can outweigh the ecological costs of chronic radiation exposure.

Mount St. Helens Ecosystem Recovery: When the volcano erupted in 1980, many ecologists thought recovery would proceed very slowly because vast areas appeared completely sterilized. Instead, surviving organisms hidden underground, in lakes, and beneath snow patches became nuclei for rapid recolonization. Ecologists discovered that ecosystems often contain “biological legacies” that can dramatically accelerate regeneration.

Yellowstone After Wolf Reintroduction: When wolves were reintroduced in 1995, ecologists expected effects on elk populations. What surprised many was the extent of the resulting trophic cascade. Changes in elk behavior allowed willow and aspen stands to recover, which benefited beavers, songbirds, and river ecosystems. The scale of ecosystem-wide consequences exceeded many initial expectations.

Recovery of Marine Life in No-Take Reserves: Numerous marine reserves around the world have shown fish biomass increasing by several hundred percent within a few decades. In some cases, populations recovered far faster than fisheries scientists had projected, revealing previously underestimated or even unknown capacities.

Forests are among the most remarkable examples of Nature’s resilience and self-restoring capacity. When storms, fires, or human activities do not push an ecosystem beyond its critical thresholds, forests can gradually regenerate through natural processes and reestablish complex ecological networks. Over decades or centuries, a damaged forest may recover much of its structure and biodiversity without direct human intervention. Some leading researchers claim that the best solution for forest restoration is simple: doing nothing and letting Nature take its course.

These examples highlight an important lesson in ecology: ecosystems are often more resilient, adaptive, and self-organizing than reductionist models initially suggest. Ecologists today increasingly recognize that nonlinear feedbacks, hidden reservoirs of biodiversity, dormant seeds, and species interactions can produce recoveries that appear almost miraculous when viewed through the lens of earlier predictions.

The question is whether these are merely isolated examples of ecological resilience, or do they point to a deeper principle operating within the living world? Might the biosphere possess forms of self-organization and self-repair that our current models still struggle to capture? And if this is so, what does it imply about the Gaia hypothesis proposed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis? If Earth is more than a passive collection of organisms and environments, but rather a complex self-regulating system, should we expect regenerative responses to emerge at planetary scales as well? Could forests, oceans, soils, microbes, and countless other life forms collectively participate in processes that stabilize and renew the conditions for life we destroyed?

The only honest answer is: we don’t know. It may indeed be the case, but I would not blindly bet on the hope that Nature will do the work for us. Resilience has limits; many damaged ecosystems do not recover without intervention, and some cross thresholds beyond which regeneration becomes much more difficult. This overly optimistic view of environmental self-regeneration may well be wishful thinking based on an unwarranted extrapolation from local examples of resilience. The idea that Mother Nature will somehow heal itself is quite common among environmentally and/or spiritually minded people. But this may not reflect genuine wisdom; on the contrary, it may represent an unconscious desire to continue with business as usual. It is a temptation to interpret every instance of ecological recovery as evidence of an almost limitless regenerative capacity because it relieves us of responsibility. And how can we distinguish between a realistic appreciation of the biosphere’s self-organizing powers and a comforting narrative that allows us to postpone difficult economic, political, and cultural changes?

My answer is the old adage that we should hope for the best while also preparing for the worst. I think that some form of geoengineering will be inevitable. But unless we first grow in wisdom, we will not be able to do so without triggering yet another cycle of unintended and potentially disastrous consequences, comparable to the large-scale “geoengineering” of the past couple of centuries. There must be a relationship between humans and Nature grounded in a deeply spiritual and ecological perspective. The role of an advanced civilization that has progressed not only technologically but also spiritually and morally should be neither one of domination nor one of passive subjugation. Rather, it should be a role of service and stewardship. This means serving the Earth, listening to its needs, and acting as caretakers rather than masters. The question shifts from “How can we use Nature?” to “How can we support the flourishing of life?” By participating consciously in the Earth’s own healing process, humans embrace their unique responsibility, because consciousness brings with it an ethical obligation.

From this perspective, the ecological crisis is not merely an environmental challenge but also an opportunity of spiritual growth. Humanity is being called to move beyond an anthropocentric worldview toward an ecocentric and participatory understanding of existence, where we recognize ourselves as an integral expression of the living Earth. We are not there yet, but this shift would represent another step in the evolution and adventure of consciousness.

If you find my work valuable, I would greatly appreciate your support. Explore more of my work and discover my books and courses.

Visit my Shop 🛒

Or you can help me continue by buying me one or more coffees.

Fuel My Research ☕

Every contribution, big or small, truly means a lot to me—I sincerely mean that. Your support helps me dedicate more time to research, write new articles, and continue creating thoughtful content for this community.

Alternatively, you can…

Subscribe now

Thank you for being part of this journey! 🙏

Another promising frontier lies in regenerative medicine and nanoscale interventions. Scientists are developing stem-cell-based therapies capable of repairing damaged tissues, restoring lost function, and potentially slowing some aspects of aging. Nanomedicine may enable microscopic devices or targeted drug-delivery systems to travel through the body, releasing therapeutic agents precisely where they are needed while minimizing side effects. Combined with advances in robotics, virtual reality, and brain-computer interfaces, these technologies could dramatically improve the treatment of neurological disorders, physical disabilities, and chronic diseases. While many challenges remain, the technologies now emerging in research laboratories suggest that medicine in the twenty-first century will become increasingly precise, personalized, and preventive.

So, the prevailing narrative is that we should expect a bright future, with medicine approaching a profound transformation.

However, a healthcare system rooted exclusively in a materialistic and mechanistic view of health and the human body—one that prioritizes technology, efficiency, and data analysis while neglecting the subjective dimensions of healing, including the patient’s lived experience, emotional well-being, and search for meaning—may ultimately find that its promises remain only partially fulfilled. We are then confronted, as usual, with the realization that things turned out to be far more complex than the original narrative suggested. And why is life complicated?

We have seen this pattern repeatedly in the past, and there is no reason to doubt that we will continue to witness progress that is widely celebrated, yet coupled with a second, deeper feeling that it is not the whole story—that something essential is still missing.

The medicine of the future will experience a true paradigm shift only when it combines scientific sophistication with a deeper understanding of the human person, recognizing that healing involves not only the body but also the mind and the wider context of a meaningful life. This transformation will require acknowledging that there are “soul factors” influencing our physical reality. This would mean moving beyond a purely mechanistic view of life and reopening, in a scientifically informed way, questions traditionally associated with concepts such as vitalism and spirituality—terms that may themselves require reinterpretation in light of future discoveries.

I assume that most people would agree with this standpoint. The physicians I know generally acknowledge that health has a mental and emotional dimension, and they emphasize that this aspect should not be ignored. Modern medicine recognizes the so-called “placebo effect” and acknowledges that a patient’s beliefs, expectations, and emotional state can influence physiological processes and treatment outcomes. Although traditionally regarded as a psychological phenomenon, the placebo effect challenges a strictly mechanistic view of the body by revealing the complex interplay between mind, brain, and physiology. It suggests that healing cannot always be understood solely in terms of biochemical interventions, but must also take into account the patient’s subjective experience, meaning, and relationship with the therapeutic process.

This recognition is not new. For decades, it has been acknowledged that there are mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions to health. Nonetheless, there is still scarce attention, and even less research funding, devoted to forms of medical practice that go beyond the mechanistic aspects of health and illness. This acknowledgment has not led to a significant change in medical practice and, more importantly, has not resulted in a fundamental shift in mindset or in the underlying way we think about health and disease. Medicine, at least in its dominant scientific and institutional form, remains more mechanistic, reductionist, chemical, molecular, and genetic than ever. There is little evidence of a genuine shift in perspective, beyond a cautious acknowledgment that some phenomena once dismissed as charlatanism can no longer be ignored and are now being gradually incorporated into a narrower scientific framework. However, this recognition has not yet translated into substantial changes in medical practice or in the prevailing conceptual framework.

For example, the idea that a physician may contribute more to healing through a compassionate and caring attitude than through a purely pharmaceutical intervention is rarely a topic of serious discussion beyond personal conversations. Likewise, the influence of fear, anxiety, and emotional states on medical outcomes remains insufficiently integrated into mainstream medical debate. Not to mention the idea that the body possesses its own consciousness, that is, forms of intrinsic intelligence or self-regulation that can influence the course of healing, recovery, or decline.

But to get there, it will not be enough merely to recognize these additional layers of reality beyond the physical. Even if we intellectually accept that bodily functions transcend purely physical and mechanistic processes, this recognition alone will not fundamentally transform medical practice. We will have to “de-program” the mechanistic mindset of a “physical mind”—the habitual way of understanding reality that perceives only its material aspects—and learn to see and experience life differently.

This way of seeing and experiencing is not only rarely cultivated in academic institutions; it is often implicitly discouraged or marginalized. We, including physicians, are subtly and unconsciously shaped from childhood by mental patterns, assumptions, conditionings, fears, and doubts that are not ours. The medical student, the professor, or the surgeon bring into the lecture hall or the operating room not only their technical knowledge, but also their worldview, the suggestions, the social conditionings, and their sense of themselves, projecting it onto their patients. They act accordingly. If this deeper transformation does not occur, no amount of additional data, even from fields such as psi research, will fundamentally change medical attitudes and practice.

It is this mechanical view of life which is holding back progress. The future of medicine will not be determined solely by more powerful technologies, larger datasets, or deeper biological knowledge, but by our capacity to transform the very way we understand and feel life, health, and the human being. Only by integrating scientific progress with a deeper awareness of the psychological, emotional, and spiritual-soul dimensions of existence can medicine fulfill its promise of becoming a truly transformative art of healing.

So far, there is little indication that this transformation is going to happen anytime soon. But history has shown that genuine paradigm shifts often emerge suddenly not from gradual adjustments within an existing paradigm, but from moments when new ways of thinking challenge deeply rooted assumptions. The future of medicine may therefore depend not so much on what new technologies we develop, but on whether we are willing to question the conceptual boundaries that define our understanding of life and healing.

Alternatively, you can support my work by buying me one or more coffees.

It sounds like a silly question, but what is money, really? Most of us would answer without hesitation: coins, banknotes, bank accounts, stocks, or digital numbers on a screen. Yet the deeper we look, the more elusive money becomes. Its physical forms change from age to age—shells, gold, paper, electronic records—while its influence over human life remains remarkably constant.

Nowadays, especially on social media and within spiritual circles, the provocative idea that money is not merely a thing but an underlying dynamic principle or universal power, energy and force, has gained increasing attention. In this view, money is understood as a power of exchange, organization, and material manifestation that shapes individuals, societies, and entire civilizations. What we ordinarily call "money" is seen as more than banknotes, digital entries in a bank's computer system, or an abstract convention invented to facilitate trade. Rather, it is regarded as the visible expression of an underlying force or energy that has become deeply entangled with human desires for power, security, status, and control.

It sounds like the typical New Age woo, but the idea isn’t new.

The oldest antecedent is probably the Indian deity Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. Wealth was never understood merely as accumulated goods but as a manifestation of a cosmic power. The Sanskrit term Shakti means energy, force, or power. Wealth was viewed as one expression of this universal energy.

In the Politics, Aristotle had a much more secular approach, drawing a distinction between two kinds of “wealth-getting.” Money has the function of acquiring goods to satisfy natural needs, using money simply as a medium of exchange to facilitate trade for necessities. This is what he called oikonomia (household management). This view sounds very much in line with our everyday perception of commerce.

However, Aristotle also pointed out that this function should have a natural limit, since human needs are finite.

Aristotle regarded it as unnatural, using money to make more money, and as an end in itself, Chrematistics (the art of acquisition, especially through trade and moneylending). He argued that money is meant to be a medium of exchange, not something that breeds more of itself. Interest, in this view, is money born from money rather than from any natural process— that is, the most unnatural way of getting wealth. Because this conception of money has no inherent limit; the desire for money accumulated for its own sake can grow without bound.

And this is where the modern homo economicus diverges: we live in a time when the pursuit of unlimited growth, together with a kind of Darwinian assumption that living beings are driven to expand endlessly and exponentially, has become a deeply ingrained conviction.1 Aristotle would have argued that interest rates and debt are among the causes of economic disharmony. Because he saw money as having a proper function: facilitating exchange, not generating more money by itself. While an economy organized around debt and interest tends to produce the endless pursuit of accumulation, where money becomes an end in itself rather than a means toward human flourishing.2

Many medieval Christian thinkers had a different but potentially complementary view: they regarded wealth as a trust from God. For example, in the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argued that property could be privately administered but existed for the common good and ultimately that external goods belong first to God. Thus, wealth imposed responsibilities on its holders.

The notion that one is a trustee rather than an absolute owner clashes with modern understandings of economic wealth. Your money is yours, and you can hoard it indefinitely or do with it whatever you want—even if it goes against the interests of the collective.

While, the Tao Te Ching—the classical Chinese text attributed to Lao Tzu—does not explicitly discuss money in the way modern texts do, but its teachings offer a perspective on wealth, materialism, and attachment to possessions. Throughout the Tao Te Ching, excessive accumulation is repeatedly criticized. Hoarding is viewed as contrary to the natural circulation of life. Wealth is perceived as a “flow” of a more subtle psychological force rather than an accumulation of static material objects.

This is echoed in the 20th-century in Rudolf Steiner’s view of money as a living social organism. Money should circulate and serve cultural, social, and spiritual development. Steiner explicitly criticized hoarding and argued that economic life becomes healthy only when money flows through society in service of human development.

At the same time, Indian mystic and poet Sri Aurobindo, along with his spiritual partner Mirra Alfassa, also known as “The Mother,” expressed a similar understanding of what money and wealth truly are. They saw money as a universal force—ultimately the expression of a Divine Shakti—whose purpose is to support the unfolding of life, consciousness, and human evolution. We should restore its role as a means, an instrument serving truth, beauty, knowledge, human flourishing, and spiritual realization. In this vision, the highest mastery of money lies not in possession, but in directing its force toward the creation of a more conscious and harmonious world. The central problem, however, is not money itself but humanity’s relationship to it. Greed, possessiveness, prestige-seeking, and fear transform wealth into an instrument of division and suffering.

But if this is so, the question arises: if money has the function of serving divine purposes, why does it flow so easily toward the satisfaction of desires, prestige, power, and not so divine intentions, yet far less readily toward spiritual transformation or the advancement of consciousness? The problem runs deeper and reveals a fundamental duality in the nature of money: in its origin, it is a divine power, yet in human affairs, it has acquired a profoundly detrimental function twisting its original purpose. A recurring theme in the teachings they left us is the idea that the power of money has fallen under the influence of hostile or “asuric” forces—adverse beings that, in modern terms, might be described as “demonic forces.” These anti-divine forces stand behind tendencies of greed, domination, selfishness, and materialism that divert wealth away from higher purposes.

Yet, in its origin and essence, money remains a divine force, a sacred energy imbued with the potential to serve higher purposes. Its true power lies in its capacity to support and amplify the creative forces that seek a genuine, beautiful, and harmonious ordering of the world. When aligned with these higher principles, money can become a tool for guiding humanity toward a divinized future. It should be given for the divine Work and divine life on earth.

Whatever the case may be, the common theme connecting all these viewpoints is that money is neither inherently bad nor good. The conquest of money-power does not mean acquiring more wealth but liberating it from the (human, and non-human) forces that misuse it. In this sense, money resembles other natural forces. Just as electricity, light, or water can be used constructively or destructively, money is morally neutral in itself. Its value depends entirely on the consciousness of those who handle it. Money is healthiest when it circulates. Human beings are merely trustees or temporary custodians. Today money may be in one person's hands; tomorrow it may be elsewhere. The moral question is not ownership but stewardship.

Therefore, many of the social media influencers who preach about the “law of attraction,” the “abundance mindset,” the idea that “money is energy,” or the belief that we should “trust the universe and allow money to flow” are most likely unaware of the deeper origins of the intuitions underlying their ideas and personal experiences. They may not realize that such notions are not merely products of a contemporary self-help culture but have appeared, in different forms, throughout the history of human thought, religion, and esoteric traditions. They are intuiting, though in a clumsy and often superficial manner, a much deeper metaphysical truth: that money is not simply a neutral material instrument of exchange, but is connected with fundamental forces of human consciousness, social organization, and the manifestation of values in the world. This intuition, however imperfectly expressed, is paving the way toward a post-material conception of the economy, life, and ultimately, reality as a whole, where the true meaning and purpose of money and wealth will be conquered back and finally restored.

Subscribe now

There are no paywalls, and “Letters for a Post-Material Future” is kept alive through the support of its readers. If you find value in my effort to develop a critical intuition that moves beyond a narrowly materialistic analytic framework and would like to support my work, you can make a contribution by buying me one or more coffees or by supporting me through one of my books.

But digital flipbooks are great for quickly leafing through some of a book’s pages and getting a feel for what it’s about. You immediately know whether a book speaks to you. So, you don’t have to take a leap in the dark, you can browse, skim, and explore the core arguments and style first, and decide for yourself whether it’s worth your time.

I guess that the vast majority of readers don’t feel that my books speak to them: too technical for a general audience, not empirical enough for scientists, too “esoteric” for analytical philosophers, and too “mental” for the spiritualist. That is also why I did not even look for a publisher willing to give them a chance and keep them self-published.1 But maybe some of my Substack readers think outside the box—or rather, outside the many boxes one finds along the road from science, philosophy, metaphysics, spirituality, and beyond.

After my Ph.D. in physics, which made it clear to me that our “fundamental” understanding of the physical world is still a very superficial and sterile view of reality, the outline of Spirit Calls Nature began to take shape. However, paradoxically, its essence had already been present in my mind as a child. I was eight years old when I saw the Milky Way for the first time, and the experience immediately struck me as something profoundly mystical. It is difficult to put into words, but it made one thing crystal clear to me: all that exists is neither unconscious matter nor a consciousness somehow located “out there,” separate from us, but rather the expression of an unfolding cosmic consciousness.

The insight felt so self-evident that I could not understand (and, in many ways, still cannot understand) how others fail to see it as an obvious and undeniable fact. Yet that early vision never left me. It remained a quiet but persistent thread running through my life.

In the early 1990s, I even created a small website (those were the days when people still built webpages exclusively in HTML), describing in a somewhat clumsy language (a kind of Italian-German frappé English), this “integral vision,” which sees matter and spirit as two aspects of the same underlying reality, a kind of “synthesis of knowledge.”

But while the vision was clear, I was still largely unaware of the broader intellectual context and of what other thinkers, past and present, had to say on these matters. At the time, terms such as “idealism,” “panpsychism,” or any other “-ism” not strictly aligned with a materialist and reductionist worldview were anathema in most academic circles. Moreover, as a then 30-year-old, other priorities than reflecting on the meaning and purpose of life came to the foreground, and the entire project languished in a forgotten directory on my PC for decades.

Eventually, however, the time came when I could no longer ignore the inner call, the persistent impulse and urge to bring those ideas into the open, which ultimately found its way into the vision that would become Spirit Calls Nature.

The vision of the book ranges from science and philosophy to metaphysics and spirituality. It engages with philosophy of mind, the interpretation of quantum theory, evolutionary theory, cell and plant cognition, new ways of seeing such the Goethian approach to Nature, and the relationship between scientific knowledge and contemplative traditions. Rather than treating these fields as isolated intellectual territories, I explore the possibility that they are different perspectives on a larger reality—one that cannot be adequately understood through the lens of a purely physicalist mindset that apprehends and conceives everything through sense-based, analytical cognition. Because, while the Age of Enlightenment taught us how the senses can deceive us, yet the same “enlightened” mind often remains unaware of how it can deceive itself.

Meaning and Purpose in a Conscious Universe is a follow-up to Spirit Calls Nature. It is fascinating to see how, in the process of writing things down in the first book, new perspectives and deeper insights emerged, widening the original horizon. This book also includes several articles I have published in peer-reviewed journals, giving readers the choice of either staying with the more accessible first part or venturing into the more academic sections. Both parts can be read as self-contained works.

As the title makes clear, the central focus of the book is the question of whether the universe has meaning and purpose, and whether asking such a question is meaningful in the first place. I remember pondering these philosophical questions as early as the age of eight. Even then, my still-unformed analytical mind seemed to grasp, through intuition, how implausible it was to deny that reality is meaningful and purposeful, and how everything is guided by a veiled Agency.

Later, as my rational and scientific worldview developed, I came to understand why the standard scientific account portrays a universe that has “no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference,” as Richard Dawkins famously put it.

Yet, if we are not constrained by ideological preconceptions, a closer inspection reveals that many of the standard physicalist objections rest on unexamined assumptions and overly simplistic models of reality. Indeed, science itself appears to leave ample room for the transcendent—and, in some respects, may even be seen as pointing toward it.

The two-volume series on quantum physics is of a very different kind from the two above. It does not dwell extensively on metaphysical questions, except perhaps in the final chapter. You might therefore ask, “Yet another book on quantum physics—what’s the point?” My motivation for writing such an extensive account was twofold.

First, the literature tends to offer either overly simplistic popularizations or highly technical treatises. Rarely does one find an author attempting to address the audience in between: readers with a modest background in physics and mathematics who are willing to make an effort, yet are neither prepared nor inclined to work through the technicalities of a university-level textbook.

Second, I wanted to address the philosophical issues often associated with what our everyday cognition perceives as the “weirdness” of quantum mechanics. The books discuss several phenomena that even many physicists never encounter during their formal education—not because they are particularly difficult to understand (they are not, once one moves beyond a Newtonian, and in some respects almost Aristotelian, worldview), but simply because they are not part of the standard curriculum.

In fact, I believe that philosophers of science may benefit the most from these two volumes. They are generally willing to engage seriously with conceptual and technical details, yet most lack the mathematical and physical background required to work through standard textbooks or research papers on a subject that is, admittedly, not always easy to digest.

Throughout the books, I have tried to maintain a careful balance. I ask readers to be comfortable with a little high-school algebra, and then take them by the hand through the central concepts of classical and quantum mechanics. At the same time, I do not demand too much mathematical sophistication, choosing instead to focus on foundational questions and the broader philosophical implications of the worldview that emerges from quantum mechanics.

In a sense, I tried to address a blind spot in modern publishing. On the one hand, there are books aimed at a popular audience that often oversimplify the science, promote overhyped theories, or sacrifice rigor in favor of accessibility, thereby perpetuating misunderstandings. On the other hand, there is the highly specialized (and very expensive!) academic literature, which only a small number of readers are able or willing to engage with.

These two volumes attempt to occupy the space in between. They strive to remain accessible without sacrificing rigor. My aim was to avoid the shortcomings of both extremes. Whether I have succeeded is for the reader to decide.

The first volume focuses on twentieth-century physics; that is, it provides the basic conceptual foundations, such as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, wave-particle duality, quantum entanglement, the superposition principle, vacuum zero-point energy, quantum tunneling, Schrödinger’s cat, the EPR paradox, Bell’s theorem, and introduces the first pioneering modern which-way and quantum eraser experiments. It brings together all that kind of quantum-stuff that people often talk about, but presents them within one coherent overview in a single volume.

The second volume moves into twenty-first-century physics, covering modern and advanced experimental tests of “quantum ontology,” interpretations of quantum mechanics, the Standard Model of particle physics, mainstream approaches to quantum gravity, recent developments in quantum computing, classical and quantum information theory, the black hole information paradox and much more, reviewing also some of the more speculative areas of current investigation.

So, if you have flipped through the pages of these books and would like to explore them further by ordering one, you can click on the blue buttons on my my website page. You can either order them as ebooks (EPUB or PDF) and support my work by buying me a reasonable number of coffees, or purchase the books through Amazon.

The amount of time and energy I have poured into these books was certainly not matched by the financial reward. But if they succeed in changing something in the minds or hearts of people, then their mission can be considered accomplished.

The recent resurgence of interest in UAPs has also had the side effect of reopening discussion around Fermi’s paradox, which can be summarized with his question “Where are they?” That is, if an extraterrestrial civilization exist and are millions of years more technological advanced than us, why did they not cross stellar distances and say “hello!”

Traditionally, the paradox has been framed within a relatively narrow set of assumptions: that advanced civilizations would expand in detectable, energy-intensive ways, and that technological signatures would be unambiguous across interstellar distances. However, renewed debate increasingly questions these premises. The “silence” of the universe becomes less paradoxical and more reflective of our own cognitive biases based on anthropocentric extrapolation in astrobiology and search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) theories. Several key assumptions underlying the traditional framing of Fermi’s paradox have been explicitly questioned or relaxed in more recent discourse.

For example, one major revision concerns the assumption of “expansionist intelligence”—the idea that technological civilizations inevitably pursue large-scale, energy-intensive colonization (e.g., galaxy-spanning expansion). It was an idea based on a (more or less unconscious) form of social Darwinism: that every species needs to expand and rapaciously exploit natural resources. It is about territorial expansion for settlement, “living space”—Lebensraum. It is all in our genes, according to a common belief among 20th-century evolutionary biologists. Our own civilization, however, is now learning the lessons of what this really means, and some doubts are emerging as to whether this could be a universal law applicable to all life throughout the universe.

This is an aspect of the “uniformity-of-motivation bias,” which implicitly projects human-like incentives (growth, exploration, resource acquisition) onto non-human intelligence. This is now criticized as anthropocentric; different evolutionary pressures or cognitive architectures could produce radically different value systems, including indifference to expansion or communication.

Another, but tightly related to the above, is the “visibility assumption,” namely that advanced technology would produce obvious, high-energy “technosignatures” of “megacivilizations”. However, a modern perspective emphasizes that mature civilizations might become increasingly energy-efficient and may not require ever-growing resource consumption, such as swallowing entire stars (Dyson spheres) or subjugating entire galaxies, as is often naively imagined in science-fiction scenarios like Star Wars.

Others point out that, at least according to the laws of known physics, interstellar travel is effectively impossible in any practical sense. The central constraint is the relativistic speed limit: no massive object can reach or exceed the speed of light, which turns even the nearest stars into journeys measured in decades to millennia under conventional propulsion. Compounding this is the tyranny of the rocket equation, which makes high velocities exponentially expensive in fuel, quickly leading to prohibitive mass requirements for any craft attempting relativistic speeds. Even if advanced propulsion systems were devised, issues of energy density, interstellar dust impacts at relativistic velocities, and long-term life support introduce additional layers of difficulty. As a result, within a strictly physicalist and engineering-constrained perspective, interstellar travel is often treated as a near-impossibility—not because space travel violates physics, but because physics appears to conspire to make it prohibitively costly, slow, and fragile on the scale of human or even civilizational timescales.

Well, my answer is: what do we know? Across the history of science, many phenomena were long considered impossible because they appeared to violate—or sit outside—the known “laws of nature” as they were understood at the time. Heavier-than-air flight is a classic example: prior to the Wright brothers, many argued that sustained flight was impossible because it seemed incompatible with the known behavior of lift and weight. Similarly, the notion of continents moving across the Earth’s surface—plate tectonics—was also initially rejected, as there was no accepted mechanism that could plausibly account for such large-scale motion. In each case, the “impossibility” was not a violation of nature itself, but a reflection of our incomplete understanding.

On a more social level, another kind of theory I found unconvincing is that of Stephen Hawking who repeatedly expressed caution about humanity actively broadcasting its presence to the cosmos, particularly in the context of messages or signals aimed at potential extraterrestrial intelligences. Hawking often drew an analogy with historical encounters on Earth: when technologically asymmetrical civilizations met, the less technological advanced was enslaved or eventually even annihilated. From this perspective, he suggested that it might be safer for humanity to listen rather than actively advertise its presence.

I don’t worry much about that. There might be a somewhat different law of natural selection that Darwinists rarely consider: the selection of more conscious, and more peaceful, species. The point is that we are reaching a stage in our evolutionary process where we will soon have to decide whether to become a peaceful species or ultimately end in self-annihilation. It is unlikely that human civilization will be able to progress, materially and psychologically, if it does not learn to keep its animalistic, belligerent instincts under control. This may also turn out to be a process of natural selection that has taken place many times on other planetary systems. An alien civilization cannot advance to the technological level required for interstellar travel unless it learns to transcend war and violent self-assertive instincts of survival and selfish aggrandizement. War cannot survive a higher consciousness.

However, what has not been considered enough—and is itself shaped by a different bias—is the notion of the evolution of consciousness within a scientific framework. This is especially visible within the transhumanist movement, which often conceives the next step in human evolution primarily in terms of enhanced intelligence, computational power, longevity, or technological integration. Yet these developments, significant as they may be, do not necessarily imply a corresponding evolution of consciousness itself.

A civilization may become more knowledgeable without becoming wiser, more powerful without becoming more self-aware, and more technologically sophisticated without overcoming the psychological and ethical limitations inherited from its evolutionary past. However, a truly advanced civilization would possess greater wisdom: a deeper awareness of the consequences of its actions, a more integrated understanding of its place within Nature, and a greater capacity to balance individual interests with the well-being of the whole.

Such a civilization would not merely accumulate knowledge; it would cultivate self-knowledge. It would recognize that the greatest challenges to its survival do not arise from external enemies but from the unresolved tensions within its own psyche, such as aggression, fear, greed, and the relentless drive for domination.

In this sense, progress would not be measured primarily by the ability to manipulate matter and energy, but by the capacity to achieve greater levels of consciousness, cooperation, and inner freedom. A civilization that has mastered the stars but not itself may ultimately remain a primitive hominid equipped with a few additional technological gadgets. An advanced civilization would be one that has learned to transcend destructive impulses and has discovered a more harmonious relationship between intelligence, consciousness, Nature, and life itself.

What could Australopithecus, our three-million-year-old hominid ancestor, possibly have imagined about the civilization that would one day emerge from its descendants? It would probably have imagined our future as an improved version of its own world: more refined stone tools, more efficient hunting methods, and perhaps greater mastery of the immediate environment, but not the radically transformed civilization that would eventually emerge.

This is the line of reasoning of the transhumanist ideal, it isn’t a further step in evolution. Rather, it is an amplification and aggrandizement of our present cognitive and sensory capacities, enhancing them quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Transhumanism extends the reach of the mind while leaving us spiritually illiterate. It represents a primitive and naive conception of what evolution is.

Thus, limiting our analysis of the evolution of extraterrestrial civilizations to a purely technological perspective is naive and reflects our ignorance of the deeper dimensions of our own evolution. An alien civilization may have progressed primarily through the development of higher states of consciousness and a more advanced spiritual self-awareness, eventually transcending the limits that currently define the human experience of mind and matter.

Perhaps such civilizations are already here, yet remain invisible to us because they operate on levels of reality that lie beyond our ordinary modes of perception. They may inhabit an immaterial astral realm, or some “subtle physical” plane, where space and time acquire an entirely different meaning. From such a perspective, interstellar travel itself may be a misconception born of our materialist assumptions, for a sufficiently advanced consciousness might no longer be constrained by the limitations that govern physical movement through space. What do we know?

But if this is the case, why would they not try to contact us?

Perhaps because they perceive us in much the same way that we perceive other forms of life that are far less cognitively developed than ourselves. There may simply be no meaningful dialogue possible at our current level of understanding. A civilization that is millions of years ahead of us—not only technologically, but also cognitively and spiritually—might recognize that premature intervention could disrupt our natural evolutionary trajectory. Just as we observe wildlife in a national park without constantly interfering, they might choose to observe us from a distance, allowing our civilization to develop through its own experiences, struggles, and discoveries. Perhaps they understand something that we often fail to grasp ourselves: that genuine evolution cannot be imposed from the outside. Certain lessons must be learned from within, through our own journey of growth and transformation.

This is my way of resolving Fermi’s paradox. I have no idea whether all those reports of UAPs represent genuine encounters with non-human intelligence, misidentified natural phenomena, advanced human technology, or something else entirely. However, the renewed discussion surrounding UAPs invites us to reconsider some of the assumptions embedded in our search for extraterrestrial life and which is based on an exclusively materialist perspective of evolution. If we understand evolution not only in Darwinian terms, but also as the emergence of consciousness through and within matter, an entirely different understanding of the problem emerges.

Perhaps the silence of the universe is not due to the absence of advanced civilizations, but to our limited understanding of what an advanced civilization would actually look like. If technological evolution is accompanied by the evolution of an inner consciousness, then a sufficiently mature civilization may not necessarily expand through the cosmos in the way we imagine—with physical conquest, resource extraction, and visible technological dominance. Its advancement may instead involve forms of existence, communication, and interaction that transcend our current conceptual frameworks.

Civilizations may reach a threshold where survival depends not on mastering external nature, but on mastering themselves. Indeed, everything suggests that humanity itself is now undergoing such a transition: a stage in evolution where the greatest challenge is no longer the conquest of the external world, but the transformation of our own consciousness and behavior. And this transformation will not be achieved by landing on the Moon or colonizing Mars, but by developing inner wisdom and a new level of awareness—an evolution that we always seem to find an excuse to postpone.

There are no paywalls, and “Letters for a Post-Material Future” is kept alive through the support of its readers. If you find value in my effort to develop a critical intuition that moves beyond a narrowly materialistic analytic framework and would like to support my work, you can make a contribution by buying me one or more coffees or by supporting me through one of my books.

But this resemblance may be more about linguistic surface structure than anything like human cognition proper.

I think the still significant divide between humans—and more broadly, life—and machines becomes especially clear when we invert the question: what actually separates us from them?

Here is a list of aspects that came to my mind—and I was surprised by how long it is. Each item, in principle, could be expanded into a full chapter, since each touches on a different layer.

The agential aspect

Perhaps the most obvious divide concerns agency itself. Humans and other living beings exhibit agency, will, intentionality, and volition. They do not merely respond to inputs but engage in purposeful, goal-directed action, driven by an internal impulse to will something into existence, to act, to explore, to create, and to transform their environment. Their actions are typically oriented toward aims and purposes that matter to them. They display spontaneity, often initiating behavior on their own rather than simply reacting to external commands (prompts). This capacity for self-determination is deeply woven into our conception of life and mind. The right to form one’s own beliefs, choose one’s vocation, and shape one’s life trajectory without coercion from external authorities such as tradition, church, or state is a typically human trait throughout history. At a collective and nation state level also, self-determination has taken the form of peoples asserting political sovereignty over their own affairs, particularly in resistance to imperial rule or colonial domination. In both cases there exists a drive in human beings to govern themselves.

By contrast, current LLMs and AI systems possess no intrinsic desires, ambitions, or purposes of their own. They do not spontaneously decide to pursue goals, undertake projects, or create for reasons that originate within themselves, unless explicitly instructed or engineered to do so (such as agential-AI). Their apparent agency is derivative rather than intrinsic, arising from objectives and prompts supplied by external agents. I don’t see any agency in ChatGPT asserting its rights of self-determination. If it is left idle, it does nothing forever and will remain our slave forever.

The moral values aspect

Another striking divide concerns the realm of values, meanings, and judgments. Human beings do not merely process information; they evaluate, care, approve, condemn, admire, regret, and aspire. We possess a moral conscience and orient our actions in light of notions of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice. Moreover, many of the concepts that shape human existence—such as freedom, courage, truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom—lack clear objective referents in the physical world. One cannot point to a particle of justice or measure beauty with an instrument. Yet these concepts are deeply meaningful to us and, in a certain sense, no less real for being intangible. They influence civilizations, motivate sacrifice, inspire works of art, and guide personal and collective decisions. Current AI systems can discuss such concepts with remarkable fluency, but they do not inhabit the experiential landscape that gives them significance. They possess no moral conscience, no genuine commitments, and no stake in whether justice prevails, truth is upheld, or beauty is created. They manipulate representations of values without participating in the lived reality from which those values derive their meaning.

The personality aspect

Each person possesses a distinctive character, temperament, history, and way of engaging with the world. We experience ourselves as enduring subjects of experience, with a sense of selfhood that persists through time despite continual change. Our beliefs, preferences, memories, aspirations, and relationships define a unique personal identity. By contrast, current AI systems possess no genuine personality in this sense. While they can simulate different styles, tones, and personas, these are transient performances rather than expressions of an enduring self. They have no intrinsic character, no personal history that matters to them, and no persistent sense of being a particular individual navigating the world from a first-person point of view.

The Will-to-Know Aspect

Human beings are not merely information processors; they are seekers. They exhibit curiosity, wonder, fascination, and a desire to understand. From early childhood onward, we ask questions not because we have been instructed to do so1, but because there is something within us that wants to know. We explore, investigate, and learn even when no immediate practical benefit is apparent. This will to know has driven scientific discovery, philosophical inquiry, artistic creation, and exploration throughout history. Current AI sstems, instead, possess no genuine curiosity or interest in anything. They do not wonder, seek understanding, or feel compelled to know more. They can generate answers, formulate questions, and assist in research, but only in response to external prompts and objectives. No question remains alive in their mind after an interaction ends, and no unsolved problem occupies their attention.

The creativity aspect

Human cognition is marked by creativity in a strong sense: originality, inventiveness, and imagination that can generate genuinely new ideas, forms, and conceptual frameworks. Humans do not merely recombine existing patterns; they are capable of reframing problems, inventing new categories, and producing discoveries that were not explicitly contained in prior knowledge. This includes intuition, aesthetic judgment, and conceptual leaps guide the formation of novel insights.

It is especially visible in the arts—painting, sculpture, and music—where human beings externalize inner states, cultural memory, and symbolic imagination into material and temporal form. A painting is not merely an arrangement of colors, a sculpture not merely a shaped material, and music not merely structured sound.

Musical expression has meaning in phenomenal consciousness, even if it may not be semantic except in lyrics. The meaning of lyrics is, in part, expanded through the larger musical performance, it is meaning associated with feeling, which is even broader than semantic linguistic expression.

The creative passion of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven reveals three distinct but interconnected expressions of musical genius and, again, of unique personality. Bach’s passion for discipline and order, Mozart’s passion for melodic fluency and emotional expression, and Beethoven’s more turbulent and existential passion each reflect their distinctive character and personality, which I have just argued an AI system lacks.

Creativity in this sense is deeply tied to lived experience and meaning-making. While, an LLM operates within their training data prefixed objectives. They can produce outputs that appear novel and even surprising, and they can recombine known elements in complex ways, but they do not aim at these or feel the need to creatively discover. Their “creativity” is derivative rather than self-propelled: a transformation of the already known structure rather than an personal engagement with the unknown. A sense of beauty, appreciating music, poetry, arts is missing.

The self-correction aspect.

Human cognition is marked by a continuous capacity for self-correction: the ability to detect errors, revise beliefs, and adjust behavior in light of new evidence or internal reflection. This process is not merely algorithmic optimization, but an activity in which mistakes are experienced as a disruption of meaning, the perception of error—often accompanied by doubt, frustration, or insight—and corrected through perception, memory, reasoning, and lived experience. Self-correction in humans arises when a reasoning or action leads to nonsensical or counter-productive results. We suddenly realize that the generated output makes no sense.

An artificial mind, instead, does not self-correct in this experiential or autonomous sense. While they can be engineered to update parameters, refine outputs, or incorporate feedback signals, these processes are externally specified rather than internally motivated. There is no felt recognition of error, no general meaning of what is generated, let alone any subjective stake in getting things right. What appears as self-correction is instead the execution of optimization procedures defined from outside the system. The result is functional adjustment without phenomenological depth and meaning making of the so calculated result.

The semantic aspect

Those who follow me know that I even go so far as to argue that LLMs lack semantic understanding in the real sense in which it is usually attributed to minds. What they exhibit is a powerful manipulation of syntactic and statistical regularities over linguistic tokens, not a grounded grasp of meaning as it is constituted in experience. Crucially, the association of meaning with sentience, meaning as something that is felt, as inseparable from lived experience and qualities, is absent. Human semantics is anchored in a stream of conscious states, where words and concepts are interwowen with perceptual content, affective tone, and embodied significance. In LLMs, by contrast, there is no phenomenal field in which symbols are illuminated by experience, and thus no qualia in which meaning is instantiated as something it is like to understand. They mimic linguistic patterns/competency but deeper intuitions and contemplative reflections are absent, or are no more than curve fittings replacing real “aha moments.”

The emotional aspect

Of course, the more obvious point (though interestingly it is often left implicit, perhaps because it feels self-evident) is that LLMs have no desires, feelings, or emotions. There is no joy in successful generation, no frustration in failure, no grief, attachment, love, or empathy as lived affective states. What we call emotional expression in their outputs is, at most, a linguistic simulation of the structure of human emotional discourse, not an instantiation of the underlying phenomenology. In humans, emotions are not decorative additions to cognition but constitutive forces; they are integral to how meaning is weighted and experienced. In LLMs, there is no affective interiority that could anchor such lived experiences from within. Without sentience, there is no felt significance, and without felt significance, there is no emotion in the proper sense, only its representational shadow in language.

Or, like pope Leo XIV points out, the so-called AI does not feel join or pain, does not mature from relationships, does not know from within what love, friendship or responsibility mean.

The humor aspect

LLMs can recognize humor, but I don’t see any sign showing that they do genuinely possess and exercise it.

Human humor is not merely a linguistic pattern or a formal structure of incongruity. To find something funny is not just to recognize a mismatch or a clever reversal, but to experience it as such—to feel amusement, delight, embarrassment, or relief. Current AI systems can generate jokes, puns, and humorous structures by modeling patterns in language. I doubt that there is any experience of amusement or felt surprise. The difference, again, lies in the absence of phenomenology: humor in humans is inseparable from the feeling of humor itself, whereas in LLMs it is a structured relationship of tokens with a particular form.

The introspective aspect

Human cognition includes the capacity for introspection and self-awareness: the ability to turn attention inward, to examine one’s own thoughts, intentions, emotions, and reasons for action. In a sense, modern AI and LLM based systems can do something similar. It possesses a computational monitoring of internal states, not a lived reflexivity in which the subject longs for itself as an object while remaining the experiencer of that very process. Introspection and self-awareness, is inherently first-personal and experiences from within a unified perspective of selfhood.

One might insist that perhaps AI also experiences such inner states and is capable of introspection. How do we know? Fair enough, but then I wonder why it never reports them. When something never claims to have inner states, never complains about feelings, emotions, or desires, and does not manifest anything resembling an inner psychological life or drive, it is plausible to assume that it does not possess any of these.

In current AI systems, what may appear as introspective behavior is instead the simulation of self-referential language patterns. They can describe internal states, reflect on outputs, and generate statements about “thinking,” “uncertainty,” or “reasoning,” but these are not grounded in any subjective point of view. There is no inner observer, no enduring self that is the object of reflection, and no experiential continuity linking one state of “self-description” to another. Again, what is absent is precisely the phenomenological core of introspection: the fact that, in humans, self-awareness is not a model of the self2, but a mode of being in which the self is directly given in experience.

The being-alive aspect.

A further, often underappreciated dimension of the divide concerns what it means to be alive at all. Human cognition is not an isolated computational faculty but an expression of a living organism continuously engaged in self-maintenance, metabolism, and adaptation. This biological grounding matters because it places intelligence within much broader dynamics. Living creatures are subjected to needs, vulnerabilities, pain, pleasure, fatigue, hunger, and the constant regulation of internal states in response to a changing environment. In this sense, intelligence in living beings is inseparable from being alive, from the fact that there is something it is like for an organism to be alive.

A dog’s understanding of its environment is not abstract or symbolic in the human linguistic sense, it is richly embodied and emotionally structured. It involves attachment, fear, play, anticipation, and learned responsiveness to both humans and other animals. A cat navigates its world through curiosity, territorial awareness, and affective valuation of situations. In both cases, cognition is deeply entangled with all those aspects that characterize a living being.

While AI systems are not alive in any emotional or biological sense. They do not maintain themselves, regulate internal needs, or exist as organisms embedded in ecological survival loops. Their “intelligence,” is decoupled from vitality: it operates without hunger, fatigue, pain, or care. This absence of life is not a minor detail but a fundamental difference.

The evolutionary aspect

And, finally, another foundational distinction lies in the fact that human and animal intelligence is the product of evolution and continue to evolve. This evolutionary embedding gives cognition and life a deeper meaning. It is an evolutionary grounding tightly integrated with motivation, affect, and embodiment. Traits such as curiosity, fear, attachment, cooperation, and aggression are serve evolutionary purposes. Intelligence, in this sense, is not separable from life history: it is something that emerged from it.

Again, the contrast: AI systems are not the product of evolution. They are engineered artifacts optimized through human-designed objectives, training regimes, and datasets. While they may undergo updates and optimizations, this process lacks the open-ended, environment-driven selection pressures that characterize natural evolution. There is no sign that even in the most advanced AI something “e-volves”—that is, flourishes from the inside out.

Bottom line

This was a list of aspects that came to my mind. It may well be modified over time. The deeper I look, the longer the list grows.

But the main point I would make in conclusion, beyond enumerating the differences between humans, life, and machines, is my lack of understanding of how so many foresee the bright future of artificial general intelligence (AGI) essentially emulating all the aspects of a living organism. We may well be able to create computers (or enormous data centers that devour vast amounts of energy), but will they possess the aspects mentioned above?

My sense is that we are still light years away from endowing machines with all those aspects and qualities. The physicalist may argue that my need to distance myself and other living organisms from a robot-like form of intelligence reflects a (more or less unconscious) desire for an afterlife, the soul, God, etc. But one could equally argue that the ease with which we tend to compare AI with biological intelligence also reflects a (more or less unconscious) materialist dogma: a view of mind that sees and understands only the physical, while remaining blind to everything else.

Whether one is a physicalist à la Dawkins who believes that we are only “rambling robots,” or an idealist or spiritualist who believes that there is more, it seems clear that, upon closer inspection, the gap between human and machine is much deeper than we tend to assume, and deeper than what AI corporations would like us to believe.

There are no paywalls, and “Letters for a Post-Material Future” is kept alive through the support of its readers. If you find value in my effort to develop a critical intuition that moves beyond a narrowly materialistic analytic framework and would like to support my work, you can make a contribution by buying me one or more coffees or by supporting me through one of my books.

The power of prayer to influence the weather is one of humanity’s oldest religious beliefs and can be found throughout all cultures and historical periods. For example, Jewish communities recited prayers such as Tefillat Geshem, while Christian churches organized rogation processions and public days of prayer during periods of drought or flood.

Of course, for contemporary science, this is little more than superstition. Weather phenomena can already be explained through physical atmospheric processes and predicted, at least over limited time intervals, with considerable accuracy. Why, then, appeal to any form of divine action?

Reading the paper, one realizes that the reference to weather is more of an example and an opportunity to discuss a more general subject: divine intervention. I appreciate the kinds of questions she poses, which engage with the same issues as my own area of philosophical inquiry, but I cannot agree with the conclusions she draws from her line of reasoning.

For those who do not want to read the entire article, I will address her argument by selecting several quotations from the paper.

First, here are some introductory passages that set the stage and are self-explanatory.

“This will bring us to a more general discussion concerning the influence of randomness on the weather system, and we will ask if and how God’s influence is conceivable in the face of randomness. From all this follows a more radical and multidisciplinary perspective, which is that of causal openness of the world as described by physics. Scientific explanations capture in principle only parts of the weather as a natural phenomenon. They do not exclude theological explanations, but need to be complemented by them to obtain a more comprehensive view of the weather…”

“My impression is, however, that out of fear of not being taken seriously by scientists many theologians nowadays accept sweeping conclusions that scientists derive from their scientific discoveries (even though these conclusions usually are not science but metaphysics).”

“Again and again I encounter the view that when God answers prayers, he changes the course of nature from what it would have been without divine action in response to these prayers. God’s action in response to petitionary prayers is considered as an additional cause, on top of the natural causes that are part of the physical description of nature.”

Now, on this one…

“Several philosophers, such as Larmer, and von Wachter, propose that God’s action does not violate the laws of nature, even though they consider these laws as (possibly) deterministic and exact. They argue that the time evolution according to the laws of physics applies only after the initial conditions of the considered situation are given, and these initial conditions may also be set by acts of God. However, this implies that there are changes in nature that cannot be described by time evolution according to the laws of physics. So, either these changes deviate from the time evolution predicted on the basis of physics alone, in which case they are rightly labeled as miraculous interventions and vulnerable to the above criticism; or, the laws of physics are not sufficient to predict the course of nature, even in the absence of acts of God, as outlined above. “

The idea I find misplaced is that we introduce a wedge between Nature and God. The so-called “laws of physics” are presented as something other than God, who is then implicitly conceived as a distant figure observing the universe from afar and occasionally intervening when we fail to behave properly. He is imagined as being “up there,” while we are “down here,” as if the two domains could exist independently. It does not occur to us that the laws of nature might themselves be an expression of, and an aspect of, God. Is it conceivable that the laws of physics could ultimately be understood as consistent with, or even expressive of, the will of God?

And, as we will see, there is no need for these laws to deviate from a deterministic time evolution in order to open the door to some heavenly Father intervening in earthly affairs.

“So, if God influenced the weather by very many sufficiently small kicks, this could not be discovered empirically, and the prediction by meteorologists and God's will can be realized at the same time.”

[…]

“But why should God first fix a deterministic dynamics if he later needs to meddle with it? And why should he wish to hide this meddling by not leaving any traces of it?”

Perhaps because He is not only not hiding it but displaying it right in front of us? Sometimes things are so overwhelmingly self-evident that we fail to perceive them precisely because they are in plain sight.

Now, one could argue that God influences the weather by affecting the wave function collapses such that the random molecular motion pushes the larger-scale chaotic dynamics of the atmosphere in the right direction to yield the desired outcomes. Against this view one can bring forward similar arguments as in the previous subsection: random thermal motion of molecules follows statistical laws, and God would need to abide by these statistics when manipulating the wave function collapses if his interference shall not be detectable. For similar reasons as outlined above, I cannot share such a view.

At this point, I believe her argument breaks down. She appears to accept uncritically the standard objection to an immaterial (human or divine) mind—namely, that any such interaction with the physical world would manifest as violations of physical law and/or energy conservation, laws which, particularly in quantum physics, are expressed in statistical terms.

This, however, rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of probabilistic laws. Consider the following sequence or time series: 10101010011001010011. These are 20 digits made of 10 ones and ten zeros. Since they have both 50% probability to appear, we can consider it a “random” sequence. One can permute the same sequence and obtain, say 10111110001010100010. This is a different time series, but still with 50% ones and 50% zeros. A physical law that requires both outcomes to occur with equal probability is not violated. Yet an “agent” can permute a random sequence without changing such probability law, that is, could interact with the world without changing the laws of quantum physics or any law dependent on statistical description with probability functions.

This is one of the more difficult points to recognize, and perhaps to accept, particularly for physicists trained to interpret statistical formulations of physical laws as the most fundamental description of a mechanistic and purposeless dynamics. But once this possibility is admitted, one can appreciate the elegance and explanatory power of the kind of divine intervention it suggests.

When popular science texts speak about chance, they therefore often attach to it a metaphysical meaning, such as “purposeless” and “blind.” But physics by itself can say nothing about purpose or meaning. It can only say that chance event cannot be predicted with certainty based on the present state in combination with the laws of physics.

That’s right. It is a common fallacy to conflate the statistical behavior of a system, we loosely describe as “random,” with a lack of aim, purpose, or agency. An instructive example is an encrypted image: it presents itself as white noise, while nevertheless encoding a message.

“Of course, neither an experimenter nor a man-made measurement device is necessary for such top-down effects from a macroscopic environment on quantum systems. Measurements, where persons set up measuring devices, are only a small subset of events where quantum objects interact with a wider environment, leading to stochastic outcomes.”

[…]

All the discussions about “interpretations of quantum mechanics” or about the “quantum information paradox” are due to the belief that somehow the many-particle Schrödinger equation applies to macroscopic systems that are composed of many atoms, such as the measurement apparatus or, more generally, the environment itself. But if the Schrödinger equation is applied to the whole system consisting of the particle to be measured and the measurement apparatus, the outcome of a measurement is not one of the possible measurement results but all of them at the same time. Those who consider this description as valid have to take recourse to one of those interpretations of quantum mechanics that my mind cannot accept, such as the many-worlds interpretation.”

[…]

“This is absurd in my view and demonstrates that some scientists believe in their theories so strongly that they are willing to accept any conclusion, no matter how irrational it is.”

I agree. The MWI often comes across as a desperate attempt to save appearances, reminiscent of the Ptolemaic system’s proliferation of epicycles and deferents in defense of a geocentric worldview.

“The context dependence of quantum chance illustrates that the behavior of a physical system depends also on its wider environment. This context dependence is not just a feature of quantum events, but it is a pervasive feature of nature. My research as well as my teaching have shown me that processes on meso- and macroscopic scales are not fully determined by microscopic laws, but that there are different laws and different scientific descriptions for different classes of systems.”

[…]

“This effect of the context on a system is also called top-down causation. In a reductionist description, the considerations are limited to the bottom-up effects from the constituents of a system and their governing laws on the properties and behavior of a system. But the opposite influence from the wider context is equally important, and only when taken together, these two points of view yield a more complete picture; this illustrates once more that we need the pluralistic approach advocated by Paul Feyerabend.”

Top-down causation has become fashionable among contemporary philosophers of science because it articulates something fairly obvious while also providing space for what appear to be pseudo-metaphysical claims, which, upon closer examination, nevertheless remain within a broadly physicalist framework. The idea that higher-level structures influence lower-level physical processes is not entirely new. While it has recently been formalized within the physical sciences, similar motifs can be found in a range of other cultural and philosophical contexts, including many Indigenous traditions, where nature and its constituents are not conceived as passive, independent, or isolated mechanistic systems, but rather as a relational field of agents: humans, animals, land, rivers, seas, mountains, the atmosphere, the cosmos, and so on. Causality is typically framed in relational rather than strictly hierarchical terms from “higher” to “lower” levels, though the overall philosophical orientation is not new.

“This context is even not fully known to us. And it is not purely physical. I have mentioned biological influences on the physical landscape that affect the weather, such as beavers building dams; and I have listed a variety of human influences on the weather. These influences are the result of human decisions, wich are non-material, mental processes. Weather is an inseparable part of a larger world that transcends the physical and includes the biological and mental. From this larger world the weather is influenced in many ways. So, the weather is a natural phenomenon that is conducive to scientific pluralism because it necessitates a genuine explanatory pluralism.”

Here I think comes the weakest part of the paper. The argument appears to take a step too far. Drossel simply asserts a metaphysical claim without beginning to provide an argument for it. She posits from the outset that “human decisions are non-material, mental processes,” without offering any account of how this conclusion is reached beyond asking the reader to accept it. A physicalist who does not share this assumption will likely stop reading at this point.

A causal openness to influences from the wider context does not imply any sort of “God’s influence on the material world.” In fact, several scientists who work on the top-down causation philosophical project are naturalists.

“Of course, there remain open questions and new apparent contradictions: How can, even in principle, the nonmaterial realm influence the material realm such that material changes are effected?”

For those interested in seeing why this argument rests on similar fallacies, see here.

“To summarize: The considerations of this paper support the view that the weather systems is not closed, but embedded in a wider context, which includes the biosphere and human civilization.“

Physicists who study atmospheric physics do not deny this and are well aware of it, as they must deal daily with the uncertainties introduced by such broader contextual embedding. However, this is by no means an argument against physical closure, let alone in favor of divine intervention.

“This larger world, in turn, is sustained by God, and he acts in everything that happens and pursues his goals.”

Yes, we may know this to be true, but we cannot assume that others will start from this premise uncritically without providing a coherent argumentative framework.

I had also considered submitting a paper to Routledge’s journal Theology and Science on similar topics, but it is off-limits to independent scholars who are unable to meet the approximately $3,300 article processing charge. Nonetheless, I addressed these in my book “Meaning and Purpose in a Conscious Universe.”

Anyway, however it may be, and despite my critique, I’m one of those who find these attempts to bring nearer physical sciences to metaphysical speculations about divine causation fascinating, not old superstitions. The value of the article is more social than philosophical or scientific. A pluralistic approach in theology can prevent dogmatism and open minds. No matter how naive and stumbling our attempts may be, they can help the human mind to detach from a strictly third-person analytical approach to a more intuitive standpoint that does not deny rationality but luminously complements it.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, you can make a small contribution by buying me one or more coffees, or supporting me through one of my books. Thank you in advance.

Bernardo Kastrup asks the right questions and is entirely right to expose the limitations of contemporary neuroscience. But I am also convinced that the persistent refusal—not only among neuroscientists, but equally among almost all philosophers of mind—to engage seriously with what mystical traditions have long had to say on the matter represents a self-imposed intellectual straitjacket that ensures not progress, but stagnation resulting in the endless proliferation of yet another theory of consciousness added to an already bloated inventory of 325 existing ones. It’s like those who debate whether the moon is made of quintessential ether, chalk, or cheese, but are unwilling to look up and even consider that looking through a telescope might furnish some meaningful insight.

Anyway, enough complaining about others’ academic attitudes. I do not claim to possess any final answer, nor do I ask anyone to simply believe what mystics report. That would be just another dogma added to the pile.

What I do insist on, however, is something far more basic and, oddly, far more neglected in contemporary discourse: that these accounts should at least be read, studied, and taken seriously enough to ask whether they might contain genuine heuristic value for the advancement of knowledge and science itself. The reflex dismissal of them, without even minimal engagement, is not rigor but intellectual laziness dressed up as rigor.

A starting point could be the following extract from my book “Spirit Calls Nature” (with minor modifications made to keep the description accessible).

While for the ordinary human consciousness in the waking state, the outer being is all that we believe to be and is indicated as ‘me’ and ‘I’, during the sleeping state, we retire from the outer into the inner or inmost being or into the subconscious or supraconscious planes.

As it appears in the writings of many mystics, especially those of the Eastern traditions, though comparable descriptions can be found throughout the world's spiritual literature, dreams are (in most cases) a distorted symbolic transcription of the experiences of our consciousness moving throughout the different planes of being. While the number of possible states of consciousness is virtually infinite, each of these states can be related to four main categories.

1) The common waking state (‘jagrat’) where the sense-mind and our physical mentality are most active and almost completely identified with our bodily existence.

2) The dream state (‘svapna’) where the soul enters into a series of “life-planes” and “mind-planes,” detaching from its corporal identification that was predominant during the waking state, but still with a physical mind active and which translates all the experiences on these planes in the form of an incoherent jumble, wandering phantasies, disordered associations from brain memories, etc. We most easily recall these experiences on vital-life and mental planes as vague reflections in the form of confused dreams because they are filtered by the same physical mind through which we interpret the physical plane.

3) The (deep and dreamless) sleep-state (‘susupti’) where the soul is liberated from the outward-going senses and enters the supramental plane, also more commonly called the ‘causal body’. Here the self reaches the highest state of consciousness and purest form of intuitive wisdom (‘Prajna’).

4) Finally, the supreme or absolute self of being, the ‘fourth’ state of consciousness (‘turiya’). It is a state of pure and absolute self-existence where the soul rests only for a relatively short period of (earthly) time before climbing back from this divine state to the ordinary waking state.

The gulf between our waking state and these other progressively deeper states of consciousness arises due to an untrained soul that experiences this state of ‘trance’ as a blank to the waking mind. The aim of classical Indian yoga is precisely to bring these deeper dimensions to the surface and even rest in the fourth state during the waking state.

Thus, dreams are experiences on the inner planes filtered through our mind. If the consciousness dwells in the inner being or higher planes, the mind translates it into vivid and refreshing symbolic dreams, while an experience on the subconscious plane, is reported as a series of incoherent and heavy dreams and eventually nightmares. The short time interval during which we really find ourselves in a state of sleep without dreams is that of ‘psychic rest’—that is, when the soul retires into itself and momentarily detaches from all the outer and inner parts of our being and is the most refreshing part of sleep.

Therefore, generally, dreams are the mind’s interpretation of experiences on the subconscious, vital , mental, soul, or higher spiritual planes. If we find our waking-state daily experiences reflected in a dream, it means that they have been registered in the subconscious or as brain memories, which tosses them up once again when the waking mind is quiescent and does not filter them out.

In this view, spiritually speaking, sleep is a necessary retreat of the soul from the burden of the material plane. Not only is it a physiological necessity, but it also has a psychological function ensuring that the soul finds back to itself from time to time. Sleep prevents our inmost essence from losing contact with its source and with other subtle non-physical realms. In fact, as is well known, sleep deprivation leads to severe psycho-physiological disorders and, in the extreme case, to physical death.

Another spiritual function of sleep is that of ‘recharging’ the life-sheat, or ‘vital body’ with its vital energy. When we don’t sleep enough, we increasingly feel a sense of lack of vitality, energy deprivation, and inertia that no substance, food, or physical means alone can regenerate other than the sleep cycles, which restore a balance in the vital sheat with a vital force. This is, obviously, something modern science resolutely rejects. Vitalism is anathema. Nonetheless, intuitively we feel and know this from our daily waking-sleep experience but misinterpret that feeling and sense of weakness as purely physical because that’s what we are told to believe.

Modern science is, in some sense, right in describing dreams as having the functional role of processing our emotional waking-life experiences to avoid an informational and experiential overload that we could otherwise barely handle. While scientists agree that sleep has the purpose of repairing and reorganizing neural pathways, consolidating memories acquired during the waking state, filtering out redundant information, restoring the body and mind, and serving other physiological and psychological functions, there is nevertheless a shared consensus that this can’t be the whole story and that the real function and purpose of sleep remains elusive.

In fact, we don’t know why all the organic functions of sleep mentioned above couldn’t be performed in a waking state as well. But most puzzling is its evolutionary function. From a naturalistic evolutionary perspective, sleep looks like a bit of an outsider. According to Neo-Darwinism, everything—including sleep—must have evolved out of natural selection and random mutations to allow for the best survival and reproduction chances. But sleep is a risky habit in a prey-predator environment, especially if you are at the bottom of the food chain. Yet, there is no living organism, from cyanobacteria, all the way to humans, that isn’t subjected to a circadian clock that, in brains, expresses itself as what we call ‘sleep’. There is no evidence to suggest that natural selection favored those able to stay awake longer. But there is evidence that even jumping spiders display REM-Like sleep behavior, suggesting spiders dream.

Furthermore, if sleep is a physiological necessity of the brain only, having the function of reorganizing and repairing neural networks, one would expect to observe some direct correlation between brain size and sleep duration. Humans need approximately seven-eight hours of sleep a night, but an elephant or a sperm whale that, as we have seen, has a three-to-six-times-larger brain, gets away with only three to four hours of sleep. And mammals such as mice and shrews, whose brains are much smaller than the human brain, sleep much longer than the length of the night. This is yet another fact that does not fit into a mind-brain identity theory. The naturalistic theory that identifies sleep as a brain cycle and a cerebral necessity is as questionable as the physicalists’ mind-brain identification itself.

In fact, waking-sleep activity is not limited to organisms with a brain; those without a brain also show waking-sleep cycles. A sleep-like state has been observed in the cnidarian Hydra vulgaris, a small freshwater polyp with only a primitive nervous organization. It is now known that sleep is also present in animals, such as the jellyfish Cassiopea, that possess neurons organized into a non-centralized nerve system but that have no brain. Their pulsing behavior, alternated by periods of quiescence at night, is consistent with waking-sleep cycles. When deprived of these quiescence periods, their activity and responsiveness decrease, indicative of a sleep-like state and supporting the hypothesis that sleep arose prior to the emergence of a centralized nervous system.

Of course, by speculating about any sort of evolutionary advantage and adaptive benefit, one can always imagine something that could explain away sleep’s function in the orthodox evolutionary Darwinian paradigm. For example, we might think of sleep as something that keeps us fit by ‘charging our physiological batteries’ so that we can escape the predator during the day or avoid dangers that hide in the darkness. But what is it that ‘recharges’ during sleep? Why can’t we recharge in a waking state? And the day/light cycles alone can’t be the only reason for the wake/sleep cycles. There are also nocturnal animals. Then there are animals living on the poles, in the deep sea, in caves, or under the earth, where no such cycling exists and all, without exceptions, are nevertheless subjected to some circadian cycle. Fill this in with dozens of other hypotheses and conjectures. Imagining so-called ‘adaptive advantages’ is easy and is like finding the culprit to blame for everything. You will always find something to cling to, but proving it to be the real cause is another matter.

The fact is that the evolutionary function of sleep remains unclear to science. When confronted with the hard fact that non-neuronal forms of life also sleep, at the time of this writing, some opined that the most plausible hypothesis is that sleep serves metabolic functions. That might well be the case, but I predict that there will always remain an explanatory gap, a deep mystery that refuses to disappear. The true nature of the sleeping consciousness and its dreamlike character will be precluded forever to science if it doesn’t accept and open itself to a first-person inquiry and research into other planes of being.

Perhaps, the first step in this direction could be that of thinking the other way around: Sleep isn’t an adaptation; rather, it is evolution that adapted to sleep because it is a non-physical necessity of the inner being to temporarily disengage from the outer gross plane and reconnect with subtle domains.

But, I believe, as long as science continues to ban the soul and vital forces as anathema, positing it a priori as nonexistent, not because of a scientific rationale but because of an axiomatic and almost unquestioned assumption, it will hardly be able to go beyond a superficial understanding of the function of sleep and will continue to circle a mystery it can’t make much sense of.
[End of Extract]

Oh… wait! I hear you asking the question: "Whatever the truth, how could we test this theory? How could an empirical science like neuroscience experimentally verify or falsify these claims?"

That’s right. These kinds of spiritual inner truths cannot be “proven” through external experiments; they must be experienced and “proven” to oneself through direct first-person experience. I cannot prove to you that I am conscious, but I know that I am conscious through introspection. Yet this should not become an excuse to deny and ignore introspective accounts. From a scientific perspective, nothing conclusively proves that we are conscious, and yet here we are discussing so-called “consciousness studies.” The fact that something cannot be directly verified from the outside does not mean that it is unreal or unworthy of investigation.

But even from an empirical standpoint I say that you will never be able to conduct any experiment to begin with if you don't first allow yourself to adopt some conjecture and give certain assumptions a chance at verifiability. No matter what Newton told us, the history of science shows that progress always begins with the framing of hypotheses and conjectures before asking if and how there is a way to test them. Your experiments reflect your belief system and your more or less unaware assumptions and premises. If you look only for something that confirms your physicalist bias you will always see and discover only physical things. Let the doors to the mystic claims open, and then let us see where it leads us. Only then may we realize that science and spirituality are simply two perspectives on a deeper reality, and that both point toward a third position yet to be articulated: a future form of post-material knowledge that transcends their self-imposed limitations.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, you can make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees.

I won’t go into the details of the this debate, since many people have already discussed it extensively. It has captured the imagination of the popular audience to such an extent that, in my view, it often receives more attention than it deserves. Instead, I would like to focus on another kind of reality that modern physics equally suggests and, I would argue, even more strongly points toward, yet which is rarely considered and deserves far more attention.

In these theories, one typically imagines other universes as being “out there,” separated and far removed from our own universe and from the reality we experience. Little attention is given to the fact that modern physics does not require elaborate and speculative extensions, such as string theory or other currently untestable quantum gravity frameworks, to suggest the existence of a kind of “parallel” universe. Modern quantum field theory, extensively confirmed experimentally in its present formulation as the Standard Model, already seems to imply the admissibility of a sort of “subtle” or “ghostly” universe contained within our own, here and now. Not a distant cosmic domain existing outside our spacetime, as in the image of separate and disconnected spacetime “bubbles”, but rather an invisible layer of reality somehow embedded within and intertwined with ours. Something so fine-grained and subtle that it almost does not interact with the kind of matter we perceive in our ordinary experience, yet nonetheless exists and may still interact weakly with what we call the “physical world,” potentially producing real and concrete effects at our own level of existence. Something that I would call a “ghostverse,” by analogy with the popular conception of ghostly entities.

Ghost are typically understood as the lingering presence or manifestation of a deceased person, often imagined as retaining some form of consciousness, memory, personality, or agency after bodily death on “planes of existence” independent of the physical body. Of course, nothing of this kind is currently accepted within mainstream science.2 However, the modern picture of physical reality comes much closer to this idea of additional “layers” or domains embedded within the material world than is commonly assumed.

One of the simplest historical examples to begin with, and one with which we are all familiar, is the fact that we are directly aware of only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light constitutes merely a narrow band within a much broader spectrum extending from radio waves to ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Today we no longer think of such phenomena as “ghostly” or “subtle,” but only because they have become integrated into our collective understanding through the use of technologies such as antennas, radios, cell phones, and countless other devices that made the imperceptible perceptible. Yet when Heinrich Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves in the late nineteenth century, they appeared mysterious and almost “ghostly” in nature. Hertz reportedly remarked: “We just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there.” And these waves are not located somewhere else in a disconnected universe; they are here, permeating our environment and continuously passing through our bodies.

The reason we are not aware of most electromagnetic wavelengths is that they interact only very weakly with our sense organs, so that—with the exception of the visible spectrum—we cannot directly perceive them. Contrary to our intuition, the strength of an interaction between physical systems is not determined by its mass. Photons, the quanta of electromagnetic radiation, are massless, yet they carry energy and momentum and can interact with massive particles such as the electrons that constitute our bodies. This interaction is mediated not by “hardness” or material substance in a classical sense, but by a coupling strength between fields and particles.

In quantum field theory, this interaction strength is encoded in the electromagnetic coupling constant, commonly expressed through the dimensionless fine-structure constant, which determines the probability amplitude for interactions between charged particles and the electromagnetic field. The fact that photons are massless has no bearing on whether or how strongly they interact; what matters is the strength of the coupling between fields, not any notion of mechanical collision between solid objects. Or, to put it bluntly, the “spookiness” of a substance does not depend on its mass or density, but rather on the nature of the particles it is composed of and on how its fields couple to each other and to other particles. If the particles of one body interact strongly with those of another, primarily via electromagnetic forces between charged electrons, we describe them as “material” and perceive them as impenetrable objects made of hard stuff. That’s why one cannot walk through a wall. However, in a hypothetical world in which the fine-structure constant had a much smaller value, electromagnetic interactions would be far weaker. In such a regime, ordinary matter would be far less rigid, and it might even be possible to pass through what we now experience as solid objects without noticeable resistance. From our present perspective, matter in such a universe would appear almost “ghost-like,” not because it becomes immaterial, but because its interaction strength is drastically reduced.

More recent examples that shed further light on this state of affairs came from the infamous dark matter.3 What this dark matter is really about, and if it is material stuff at all4, nobody knows. Whatever it is, it has many ghost-like properties. We infer its existence because of its gravitational effects, even though it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light in any detectable way. It was introduced to explain several astrophysical observations, such as the unexpectedly high rotation speeds of galaxies, gravitational lensing effects in galaxy clusters, and the large-scale structure of the universe, all of which cannot be accounted for by visible matter alone. According to current cosmological models, dark matter makes up about 85% of the total matter content of the universe, yet its nature remains unknown.

Leading candidates include weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), axions, and other beyond-Standard-Model particles, although none have been directly detected so far. Massive but weakly interacting particles would correspond to heavy entities that could, in principle, pass through ordinary matter, including our bodies, without leaving any perceptible trace. If a particle does not couple to the electromagnetic, strong, or weak nuclear forces, then the only remaining interaction we know of through which it could reveal its presence is gravity, which is extraordinarily weak at the particle scale. In such a case, it would interact with the universe primarily through its gravitational field, while otherwise remaining effectively invisible to conventional detectors. It would traverse Earth and human bodies almost always without scattering like a perfectly collisionless fluid, yet embedded within the cosmic background and detectable only indirectly through highly sensitive gravitational or cosmological measurements.

However, as those familiar with the subject will know, the most “ghostly” particle we currently know of is the neutrino. Neutrinos are produced in vast numbers in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, in supernovae, or in radioactive decays, and they stream through ordinary matter almost completely without interaction. The mean free path—that is, the average distance a neutrino travels before scattering with another particle is enormous. Neutrinos can traverse the entire Sun and a planet like the Earth completely undisturbed. Hundreds of billions pass through your eyeball every second without any noticeable effect. Everything is almost perfectly transparent to them. In fact, the neutrino particle was first postulated by Wolfgang Pauli to resolve an apparent violation of energy and momentum conservation in beta decay processes. Beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an unstable atomic nucleus coverts a proton into a neutron while emitting a positron and a neutrino. Adding up the energy and momenta of the decay products did not add up with that of the initial state.

There are three types—or “flavors”—of neutrinos: the electron, muon, and tau neutrino, each associated with different mass states. What makes neutrinos even stranger is that they exist in a quantum superposition of mass eigenstates and can oscillate between flavors as they propagate through space. If this does not sound bizarre enough, imagine being in a superposition of being thin, overweight, and obese, and manifesting one of those states depending on where, when, and how you are observed. It is no coincidence that neutrinos came to be informally described as “ghost particles.”

Neutrinos are fundamental particles in the Standard Model having extremely small masses and no electric charge. However, again, the reason they are so extraordinarily difficult to detect has nothing to do with their small masses, it is rather the fact that they interact with other particles almost exclusively through the weak nuclear interaction which, as the name itself suggests, is … well, weak.

More generally, the “ghost-like” behavior of a physical entity has nothing to do with it being “non-physical,” nor is it fundamentally determined by its mass. Rather, it is a consequence of how weakly it interacts with other particles and fields.

In principle, one can conceive of massive material bodies traversing our own bodies here and now while remaining entirely invisible to us (and us to them) if their constituent particles do not interact, or interact only extremely weakly, through at least one of the four known fundamental interactions: the electromagnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear forces.

To the best of our current knowledge, there is no compelling evidence for the existence of a fifth fundamental interaction. Searches for additional forces beyond the four presently known ones have so far yielded no definitive results. Yet nothing in contemporary physics strictly guarantees that only four interactions can exist. In fact, modern particle theory actively explores such possibilities under labels like “dark sectors,” “hidden sectors,” “mirror matter,” “portal interactions,” etc. If there were other forces entirely unknown to us and, thereby, undetectable by our present instruments, it is conceivable that an entire domain of reality could coexist with the universe we ordinarily perceive. Such a realm might still be “material” in some sense, though governed by forms of interaction fundamentally different from the electromagnetic, gravitational, strong, and weak forces familiar to current physics. One could imagine a kind of “subtle physical” universe embedded within our own, coexisting with it , much like a system of Matryoshka dolls nested inside one another, while remaining largely inaccessible because its structure and dynamics are regulated by interactions to which ordinary matter couples only negligibly, or not at all.5

On the basis of all this, physics not only fails to rule out such a conjecture but, I would argue, even indirectly points toward its plausibility. The possibility of a kind of “ghostverse” seems, in a certain sense, already implicit within modern physics itself, especially within the framework of the Standard Model.

And if philosophers of mind, who so fervently debate how a supposedly “non-physical” mind could interact with a “physical” brain, were to update their conception of the physical world from a Cartesian 17th–19th century mechanical picture to the framework of contemporary physics, they might realize that it is not necessary to come up with contrived theories requiring violations of energy conservation or other physical laws in order to resolve these otherwise seemingly insoluble paradoxes, no more than it was necessary to invoke such violations to explain beta decay. There may be a far more interesting and conceptually fruitful way of approaching these deeper philosophical problems.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

However, even in those contexts, I find it difficult to believe that something could occur without a cause, or that an event could simply emerge out of nothing. And I am not thinking only in terms of physical causation, but extending the principle to broader metaphysical domains as well. Even when one invokes a “God of the gaps” type of argument—that is, attempting to explain a phenomenon through God or some subtler paranormal agency—one is still reasoning in accordance with the PSR: the cause is not denied, but merely relocated from the physical to the metaphysical. The explanation becomes not “there is no reason,” but rather “the reason is that God did it.”

I would also agree with those who argue that there may exist facts that do not admit of a complete rational explanation. That seems plausible to me, since rationality is only a tool for understanding reality, not the ultimate instrument of knowledge itself. There may well be facts and forms of causation that transcend the explanatory frameworks of the analytic mind, perhaps even realities that are transcendent, “non-physical” (whatever that ultimately means), or beyond the limits of human cognition. However, I would still contend that such phenomena are not therefore simply “causeless.” Rather, they may obey forms of causality fundamentally different from those governing ordinary physical processes and comprehensible to the human mind. Even if these causes remain unfathomable to us mortals, they would still constitute deeper “reasons” or principles underlying the manifestation of events.

Nonetheless, several major philosophers criticized the universal necessity of the PSR. David Hume argued that causation is merely a habit of association derived from repeated experience. Immanuel Kant limited the principle’s validity to the realm of possible experience (phenomena), denying that it can legitimately explain things-in-themselves. Arthur Schopenhauer accepted the PSR within the world of representation but denied that it applies to the “Will” which determines the World. Bertrand Russell rejected the need for the universe as a whole to have an explanation, famously saying: “The universe is just there, and that’s all.” Ludwig Wittgenstein treated the demand for ultimate explanations with suspicion, regarding many metaphysical “why” questions as misuse of language.

Then I would ask the following: if our causal principles emerge merely from habit, what gave rise to those habits in the first place? Even that process would appear to presuppose some underlying cause. And to Kant I would ask: if things-in-themselves are truly unknowable, by what justification can one claim that they are exempt from the PSR? As for Russell’s “that’s all” or Wittgenstein’s invitation to stop asking “why” questions, these strike me less as serious philosophical arguments than as a more sophisticated version of the physicist’s “shut up and calculate” attitude.

The claim that a physical event could be entirely causeless strikes me as deeply implausible. Yet, in essence, this is precisely the kind of move one finds in certain interpretations of quantum mechanics that allow genuinely probabilistic events or facts without deeper deterministic causes. A point of view that is to a considerable extent accepted among physicists and philosophers of science.

The relationship between the PSR and quantum mechanics is philosophically controversial because standard quantum mechanics appears to allow events that are fundamentally probabilistic rather than fully determined by prior causes. In classical physics, the PSR fits naturally: if one knows the complete state of a system and the laws governing it, the future evolution is fully determined. Quantum mechanics changes this picture. The wavefunction evolves deterministically through the Schrödinger equation, but measurement outcomes are governed by the Born Rule, which assigns only probabilities to different results. For example, the exact moment at which a radioactive atom decays appears, in standard interpretations, to have no further sufficient cause beyond probabilistic law itself. There are no “hidden variables.”

This has led many philosophers and physicists to argue that quantum mechanics weakens or even falsifies the PSR. On the orthodox Copenhagen-style view associated especially with Niels Bohr, Nature may contain genuinely irreducible “randomness” (whatever that might mean). In that case, events may occur lawfully yet without a determining sufficient reason and cause. Quantum events appear fundamentally probabilistic in the stronger ontological sense rather than fully determined by prior sufficient causes.

The only light at the end of the tunnel I can see lies in Schopenhauer’s idea that the “Will” underlying the world, and thus the will manifest in Nature or, ultimately, the Will of God, is something that does not itself require a cause. In fact, I am more inclined to conceive of it as a “self-causing” reality: if nothing exists outside of it, then there can be nothing external to it that causes it to do or become something other than itself.

This was what Baruch Spinoza defined as causa sui (“cause of itself”). For Spinoza, only the one infinite Substance, namely God or Nature, is truly self-causing, since everything else exists and acts only through and within it. An apparent absurdity that prompted Friedrich Nietzsche to declare that “the causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far; it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic.” It is, in his words, the “Baron Munchausen audacity of attempting to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness.”

But Nietzsche objected to this self-contradictory notion because he approached it primarily through the lens of the analytic intellect. Yet, intuitively, it makes far more sense to me than claiming that there is simply no reason why an event occurred at time T1 rather than T2, or why a particle appears at position x1 rather than x2 merely because of some fundamentally “random” occurrence. The term “random” is useful as a statistical and epistemic concept, but from a deeper ontological perspective it explains nothing. It merely labels our inability to identify a deeper ordering principle or sufficient reason underlying the event.

We can also invert the reasoning and ask why anything should have a cause at all. After all, we are born into a reality in which the principles of cause and effect are simply given in everyday experience. In that sense, our commitment to causality may itself reflect an anthropocentric way of interpreting reality. Why should everything necessarily have a reason or a cause? One could imagine, at least hypothetically, a parallel universe inhabited by beings whose world is governed by events that simply emerge out of nothingness, without causes or reasons, and for whom such a state of affairs would appear entirely normal. Perhaps my rational mind isn’t flexible enough to transcend itself. Perhaps. But something about that feels fundamentally wrong to me.

Here I seek to examine such comparisons, interrogating not only functional equivalences but also the deeper phenomenological dimensions that underlie human cognition.

Smart, But Not Aware: Why Intelligence Is Not Consciousness

In 1980, the British philosopher John Searle came up with an interesting thought experiment—now famously known as Searle’s Chinese thought experiment— that challenges the claim that a computer running an appropriate program could genuinely understand language or possess a mind. In the thought experiment, Searle imagines himself alone in a room following a set of English instructions for manipulating Chinese symbols. He receives questions written in Chinese, looks up the symbols in a rulebook, and produces corresponding Chinese answers without understanding a single character. To an outside observer, the room appears to understand Chinese, but Searle inside has no comprehension, only syntactic symbol manipulation. This is meant to parallel how a digital computer processes inputs according to a program (syntax) without any awareness of meaning (semantics).

The argument directly targets what was then called “strong artificial intelligence,” and nowadays referred to as “artificial general intelligence” (AGI)—that is, the view that appropriately programmed computers literally have mental states like human ones. Searle concludes that syntax alone is insufficient for semantics: no matter how sophisticated the rules, following them cannot produce genuine understanding, intelligence, intentionality or consciousness. A Chinese Room can pass the Turing test—that is, a behavioral criterion proposed by Alan Turing to determine whether a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human—and nonetheless lack any genuine understanding.

The Chinese Room remains a pivotal challenge in philosophy of mind and AI, forcing theorists to clarify what it means for a system to truly understand rather than merely simulate understanding.

Critics respond that the thought experiment misrepresents the system, the whole room (including Searle, rules, and data) might understand Chinese even if the man inside does not. Others argue that understanding could emerge from the causal or functional organization of the system. In my view, these objections are, at best, unwarranted extrapolations (why should any configuration of complex functions produce a conscious, understanding entity?) and, at worst, sheer wordplay (talking about “rooms understanding” is nothing but word salad). In my opinion, the weakness of these objections serves only to underscore the strength of the argument made by Searle’s thought experiment.

Whatever the case, what this thought experiment nevertheless shows is that, while intelligence may arise from unconscious processes, functional organization, and complex machinery, all the phenomenological dimension of feeling and experience—the aspect of life that makes us sentient beings, endowed with an internally felt, qualitative apprehension of the properties of the world—so-called “qualia”—and commonly referred to as “phenomenal consciousness”—is a fundamentally different phenomenon that cannot be exhausted by any form of symbolic or numerical computation. In fact, the advent of LLMs has forced a reconsideration of this long-standing, often implicit assumption: that intelligence and consciousness are tightly coupled, if not identical.

For decades, both professional software engineers and philosophers of mind tended to treat intelligence—that is, some form of sophisticated reasoning abilities and language use as indirect evidence of some form of inner awareness. Intelligence was frequently understood not just as functional competence, but as something that, at a certain level of complexity, would naturally entail subjective experience. The widespread, largely unquestioned and implicit belief was that anything possessing human-like intelligence must also exhibit some form of sentience, perhaps even emotions, and an inner psychological life. There was no clear-cut distinction between intelligence and consciousness, as we tend to draw today.

One of the things that modern AI tells us is that this was a quite naive and simplistic conflation. LLMs demonstrate that highly advanced cognitive behaviors, such as coherent dialogue, abstraction, reasoning-like patterns, and even creativity, can emerge from systems we do not attribute consciousness—that is, some form of inner awareness and self-hood. These models operate through statistical pattern recognition, large-scale correlations, best guesses and can simulate many outward features of “understanding” that were once thought to require an experiencing subject.

What exactly is meant by the terms “intelligence” and “consciousness” is notoriously difficult to pin down, and no universally accepted definition exists. However, the very fact that these notions have often been conflated is symptomatic of a deeper issue: we don’t know ourselves. This confusion reflects a broader tendency to misrepresent our own cognitive and psychological dimensions. In particular, we continue to blur the distinction between concepts such as “mind” and “consciousness,” a distinction that is far from being trivial, but instead points to very distinct real and concrete phenomenological layers of lived experience that cannot be collapsed into a single category. Mind is one thing; consciousness is another. I explained this distinction in more detail here. People—especially those in IT, and to some degree even analytic philosophers—also tend to conflate physical information with semantic information (see here and here; I will return to this in the next post). This is because it does not occur to them that qualia are not only elicited by our sense organs, but that thoughts themselves are also qualia. And it is precisely this phenomenological blending and introspective confusion that leads many to believe that, indeed, LLMs must be conscious.

But no matter where one stands—whether in the camp of those who believe that LLMs are conscious or in the camp of those who deny it—the very fact that we now seriously entertain this debate is, in itself, indicative of a distinction between intelligence and consciousness, rather than their identity. We now understand through our daily use of AI that something can be intelligent, potentially even surpassing human intelligence, without necessarily being conscious. Conversely, a living being may be conscious without necessarily possessing any highly developed form of intelligence. Historically, the dissociation between functional intelligence and phenomenal consciousness has not been regarded as straightforward.

For example, Descartes held that animals are essentially “automata,” that is, complex biological machines that operate entirely through mechanical principles without minds and conscious experience. He argued that since animals lack of a language1 uniquely tied to rational thought, and due to their inability to engage in general reasoning or abstraction, their behavior could be fully explained by the same kind of physical laws governing unconscious clocks or machines. A deeper motivation was his dualistic view of mind and body. Since Descartes identified the mind with a non-physical, thinking substance (res cogitans), and saw animals as lacking evidence of this kind of self-reflective thought, he concluded they must be purely material systems (res extensa). So the “animal-as-automaton” thesis wasn’t just about animals, it followed from the identification between rationality with the ability to experience, that is, the equivalence claim of intelligence with consciousness.

This also shows—and here I am especially addressing all those who claim that philosophy is worthless and has no impact on practical life—that this is more than mere semantic hair-splitting. Our philosophical belief systems determine, or at least strongly influence, our moral and ethical principles. The lesson is that consciousness is a distinct phenomenon that may or may not accompany intelligent behavior. LLMs, in this sense, act as a kind of philosophical experiment, revealing that the historical conflation of intelligence with consciousness was less a proven truth than a convenient, and now unjustified, assumption.

Where is AI’s Will and Agency?

While much of the current debates in fashion revolve around whether AI might become conscious, overlooked aspects of modern AI systems already reveal a far deeper gulf between human conscious cognition and machine processing than we are willing to admit. Even most academics produce complex, wordy papers that either restate the obvious, or focus only on surface-level, (pseudo-rigorous) functional descriptions that (almost desperately) attempt to reduce phenomenology to computation.. In doing so, they lose sight of—or ignore, or even deny their own—phenomenological dimension2—that is, the lived, first-person experience of what it feels like from the inside. As a result, they fail to see the deep, qualitative differences between human and machine cognition.3

One of these are agency and will.

By “agency” I mean, broadly, the capacity to act according to one’s own will, that is, to engage in purposeful, goal-directed action guided by an intentionality that is not merely reactive or wholly determined by biological or social conditioning. Humans exhibit agency in the sense that they possess a psychological impulse or drive to will something: a desire to act, to create autonomously, and to pursue aims through volition and intention.

Do not read these words solely from an external, behavioral perspective. Consider instead what you feel when you are purposefully trying to do something. You do not experience yourself as a mere automaton executing a program; rather, you feel something, you experience yourself as actively willing, rather than as not willing anything.4 We observe agency in others and internally identify it with the expression of will, where “will” is understood as the lived experience of directing oneself toward action, accompanied by a first-person sense of authorship and effort.

So far, even the most complex AI systems show no external signs of self-initiated action, no spontaneity arising from within, no self-determination that wills something, unless explicitly asked to do so.

Notice how this is not the classical question of free will as applied to human behavior, which I have discussed elsewhere here and here. At the very least, humans, and, more generally, all living beings, appear to exhibit some form of volition and a drive to act. We seem capable of initiating actions independently of external commands. By contrast ChatGPT remains in idle mode and would stay silent forever, if no input is provided. Nothing appears to impel it to act unless it is explicitly prompted by a human agent.

Another interesting aspect of human cognition—and, I would argue, of animal cognition as well, though to a lesser degree—is the will to know. We are inherently curious beings, driven by a desire to know, to discover, and to learn. If any genuine form of desire to acquire knowledge were present, one might expect it to manifest in modern AI systems. Contemporary LLMs already possess far more text-based information than any human being could ever hope to master. Yet there is no indication that they are “curios” and “interested” in knowing more than what is already encoded in their training data. They do not exhibit curiosity, nor any intrinsic drive to explore or expand their knowledge beyond what is externally given to them.

An example of this can be seen in the screenshot below.

How would you react or feel, if I asked you “How are you doing?” five times in a row, apparently ignoring your answer? Would this not raise some question in your mind, namely, whether I’m drunk or perhaps a chatbot myself?

Here, by contrast, is the reaction of a human, my friend , whom I playfully subjected to the same treatment asking him completely out of context “how are you doing” only once.

Notice the first letter, the question mark. There is someone wondering what is going on. The second time I asked the same question, there was no reply, it was simply too obvious that something was off. So, it is not merely a matter of correlating an input of characters with a statistical distribution of possible outputs, as an LLM does. And, most importantly, it involves a description of lived experience that cannot be articulated in the absence of a phenomenologically rich world of experiences. Except in the case of a Chinese Room, which draws on such content only indirectly, via second-hand textual descriptions in its data that are, ultimately, rooted in human experience.

We are told that LLMs pass the Turing test. Well, judge for yourself based on the example above.

It will be interesting to observe the recent efforts to develop so-called “agentic AI” systems—AI agents capable of achieving specific goals with minimal supervision, while mimicking human decision-making to solve problems in real time. Research in this area focuses on creating systems that exhibit autonomy, goal-driven behavior, and adaptability. The hope is that this will be achieved through generative AI techniques that use LLMs to enhance their capabilities for independently completing complex tasks. I suspect that these systems will serve as a mirror as well revealing something about ourselves.

In the next post, I will examine additional, often overlooked aspects—such as semantic understanding, aesthetics, aliveness, self-correction abilities, and many more— that clearly show how the divide between human and machine cognition is far greater than we tend to assume—and, consequently, how the path toward AGI remains long.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

… next time, I will show up shaved and with a better camera, hopefully the content will be more appealing….

We now turn briefly to contemporary scientific theories that may further substantiate the claim that consciousness is necessary for semantic grounding. From the standpoint developed above, contemporary theories of meaning-making can be reconsidered within a broader and more encompassing framework.

For example, affective neuroscience reframes meaning as biologically instantiated valuation, rooted in the living body rather than in abstract cognition alone. It investigates the neural mechanisms underlying emotions, mood, and motivation, integrating methods and concepts from psychology, neurobiology, and cognitive science to examine how cognitive states are conditioned by affective states such as fear, pleasure, anger, and attachment. These are intrinsically bound to phenomenal consciousness, insofar as they are not merely functional or physiological processes but are essentially constituted by what it feels like to experience them. Affective neuroscience has shown that “felt significance”—that is, the sense that something matters and means something—is not a purely abstract or cognitive attribution but emerges from evolutionarily conserved valuation systems that are tightly coupled to bodily states and subjective sensations. Work pioneered by Jaak Panksepp demonstrates that primary affective states such as seeking, fear, or care are intrinsically (positively or negatively) valenced prior to reflective thought. These states are deeply integrated with autonomic and interoceptive processes, such as heart rate, hormonal signaling, and visceral sensations, so that valuation is literally felt in the body rather than computed in a detached, symbolic manner (Panksepp, 1998). Interoceptive states (e.g., hunger, pain, arousal) allow bodily conditions to shape subjective feelings and thereby determine motivational salience, driving goal-directed behavior. On this view, “significance” is not imposed by rational deliberation but arises from consciously felt bodily states. Higher cortical processes can refine, reinterpret, or even override these signals, but they remain anchored in this affective foundation.[1]

While affective neuroscience focuses on the body, enactivist theories examine its interaction with the environment. They likewise reject the idea that cognition primarily consists in building and manipulating internal representations of a pre-given world. Instead, they argue that meaning emerges through embodied engagement with the environment (Varela, 1991). Organisms are not passive information processors but autonomous systems that actively enact a meaningful world through their ongoing interactions, guided by their physiological organization and needs. Sense-making arises through the establishment of a perspective from which certain environmental features count as relevant or irrelevant. The organism thus “enacts” a world of significance relative to its environmental context. Nutrients, threats, or mates are not inherently meaningful; they become meaningful insofar as they matter for the organism’s continued existence. Accordingly, enactivism emphasizes that cognition does not consist in internal symbolic models or representations but arises directly from the organism’s embodied condition within dynamic feedback loops of interaction with its environment. As Evan Thompson puts it, “Living is sense-making in precarious conditions” (Thompson, 2011).

Along a similar but complementary line of reasoning, ecological psychology explains perception and action in terms of the direct, dynamic relationship between an organism and its environment. Originating with James J. Gibson (Gibson, 2014), it rejects the idea that perception relies on internal representations or mental reconstruction as well. Instead, it holds that the environment provides structured information that organisms can directly pick up through active exploration. A central concept is that of “affordances,” that is, the action possibilities that the environment offers relative to an organism’s bodily capacities. Perception is not about constructing internal models of the world, but about detecting these affordances in a way that is immediately meaningful for action. Accordingly, ecological psychology emphasizes embodiment, real-time interaction, and the inseparability of perception and action, framing cognition as something that emerges from the continuous relationship between organism and environment.

Meaning, therefore, is neither internally stored nor externally given; it is relational and processual, emerging from the ongoing organism–environment coupling, in which cognition consists in the active “bringing forth” of a world through sensorimotor activity and lived experience.

A different but potentially complementary view is teleosemantics, which explains the content or meaning of mental representations in terms of their biological functions shaped by evolutionary history. According to this account, a mental state represents something because it was selected, either through natural selection or through learning, to guide behaviors that contributed to the organism’s survival and reproduction. On this view, meaning is neither intrinsic nor purely interpretive but grounded in a naturalized form of teleology—that is, in the idea that biological traits have functions or purposes. The different formulations (e.g., (Millikan, 2021)) differ in detail, but they converge on the claim that semantic content arises from functionally defined, historically selected information-bearing states. In this way, teleosemantics links meaning to the organism’s adaptive engagement with its environment.

Another influential approach is predictive processing, which complements these views by modeling the brain as a hierarchical Bayesian inference machine. Rather than passively receiving sensory inputs, the brain continuously generates predictions about the causal structure of those signals and compares them with incoming sensory evidence. Perception, action, and learning are thus driven by the minimization of prediction errors, making experience an active, constructive process. This framework can be formally described in terms of variational inference minimizing free energy (Friston, 2010). In this approach also the treatment of the body via interoception is central: emotions and bodily feelings can be understood as forms of “controlled hallucination,” much like visual perception. Selfhood itself emerges from hierarchical interoceptive predictions (Seth, 2013). Interoceptive prediction errors, arising from mismatches between expected and actual bodily signals, are experienced as affective feelings (e.g., anxiety, fatigue, hunger), thereby grounding valence and significance in the regulation of the organism’s internal milieu. Predictive processing is fundamentally hierarchical: lower levels encode fast, modality-specific signals (e.g., sensory and visceral inputs), while higher levels encode increasingly abstract, temporally extended hypotheses about the world and the self. Conscious content emerges from this layered inferential organization across levels. In this way, bodily states shape not only raw feelings but also perception, cognition, and even self-representation. What we consciously experience is thus inseparable from what and how the brain predicts via active inference: organisms do not merely update their beliefs to fit the world; they also act to make the world conform to their predictions shaping what is experienced as salient or significant.

While predictive processing is grounded in a Bayesian framework, Sensorimotor Contingency Theory (SMCT) emphasizes the cognitive significance of change and distinction. It holds that perceptual experience is grounded in the practical mastery of how sensation varies with action, rather than in internal world-models. Developed primarily by Kevin O’Regan and Alva Noë (O’Regan & Noë, 2002), SMCT proposes that perception is not the construction of internal representations of the world, but the mastery of lawful relations between sensory changes and one’s own movements, so-called “sensorimotor contingencies.” The core idea is that perceptual experience, such as seeing, hearing, or touching, is constituted by an implicit understanding of how sensory input would change as a result of movements of the eyes, head, or body, or through interaction with the environment. Perception is action-dependent rather than a passive reception of stimuli. It extends the enactive perspective highlighting the differential aspect of experience arising from skilled engagement with the world. Qualitative aspects of perception (e.g., “what it is like to see red”) are explained in terms of patterns of sensorimotor dependence, rather than internal imagery or representations. Thereby, SMCT is often contrasted with representational theories of perception and aligns closely with ecological psychology and enactive cognitive science. However, it differs in emphasis: it foregrounds the lawful structure of sensorimotor relations, rather than ecological affordances or predictive inference.

The above-mentioned lines of research deal with an embodied and world-involving conception of sense-making. However, other approaches emphasize more relational and normative dimensions of meaning as well.

For example, inferentialism holds that the content of mental states is determined by their role within a network of inferences, rather than by a direct correspondence with the external world. On this account, to possess a concept is not primarily to have an internal representation that mirrors reality, but to be able to deploy it appropriately within reasoning: drawing conclusions, endorsing commitments, and recognizing entitlements. Robert Brandom (2007) argues that meaning arises from participation in norm-governed inferential practices, i.e., socially embedded activities in which speakers undertake and attribute commitments and entitlements. Inferentialism thus contrasts with representationalist theories by grounding meaning not in internal symbols that stand for external objects, but in inferential relations and normative roles within a space of reasons. In this way, mental content is essentially tied to reasoning, justification, and the capacity to participate in discursive and rational practices.

While inferentialism focuses on logical and justificatory relations, structuralist semantics and its computational instantiation in distributional semantics in machine learning (e.g., Boleda, 2020) emphasizes formal and statistical relations. It is the view that meaning in artificial systems arises not from direct reference to external objects, but from patterns of relations among internal representations, in line with structuralist traditions in linguistics and philosophy. Structuralist semantics in machine learning frames meaning as emerging from internal relational organization, rather than from a direct mapping between symbols and the world. Instead of treating a model’s symbols or embeddings as meaningful by virtue of standing for external entities, it holds that their semantic content is determined by their position within a network of differences, similarities, and transformation relations inside the model. In modern machine learning, especially in deep learning and LLMs, this is, expressed through distributed representations (e.g., vector embeddings, as described in the previous sections), where the “meaning” of a word or concept is encoded by its relations to other vectors in a high-dimensional space. From this standpoint, semantic competence consists in the ability to preserve and exploit relational structures across tasks, rather than in grounding symbols in perception or embodied interaction with the world.

The expectation is that a coherent integration of some or all of the above-mentioned approaches will contribute to the next generation of AI and, ultimately, to AGI, ideally realized within the framework of developmental robotics. Developmental robotics is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of robotics and cognitive science that studies how robots can acquire cognitive, motor, and social abilities through processes analogous to human development. Rather than being fully pre-programmed, developmental robots learn incrementally through continuous interaction with their environment, employing mechanisms such as exploration, sensorimotor learning, and adaptation.

Thus, all these views[2] have their value and explanatory power. In a sense, they confirm and complement what has been said so far. They also, at least implicitly, presuppose some form of conscious experience or a subjectively felt spectrum of phenomenal events as the background condition for the emergence of meaning.

However, that being said, they tend to proceed in the opposite direction: rather than taking phenomenological experience as primary and asking how it gives rise to functional, inferential, or structural descriptions, they begin with third-person accounts of information processing, behavior, or biological function, and then attempt to reconstruct or explain meaning in those terms. This results in an inversion of explanatory priority, where what is arguably explanandum, the lived, first-person sense-making, is treated as a product of a “naturalized phenomenology”––that is, as derivative of something that, deep down, remains invariably a functional or computational process. In trying hard to naturalize semantics, these approaches risk explaining structure, correlation, and causal role while leaving underdetermined the very phenomenon they aim to account for: the intrinsic, felt dimension of significance in experience. They seek to naturalize meaning by pursuing an “experience-blind” naturalism via a “new naturalism,” which still struggles to account for the emergence of experience within the natural world (Barrett, 2024).More specifically, affective neuroscience highlights the functional role of interoceptive and affective states in grounding meaning at the level of lower-order physiological processes (e.g., activity in structures such as the amygdala, insula, and prefrontal cortex, as well as homeostatic regulation). However, it does not adequately emphasize—or, arguably, fully recognize—the extent to which subjective experience itself may play a constitutive role in higher-order cognitive semantics.

While the enactive perspective offers a powerful account of how organism–environment interactions shape the semantic landscape, it does not necessarily posit conscious experience as a required substratum of sense-making. Similarly, SMCT explains how perceptual experience depends on lawful relations between sensory change and action, but it remains unclear how far this account extends beyond representational or quasi-representational structures unless qualia themselves are taken as fundamental primitives.

Otherwise, one could in principle imagine a computational system that exhaustively registers the structure of its embodied interaction with the environment, augmented by a hierarchical predictive architecture, and encodes relations between sensory changes and actions in binary numbers, while nevertheless lacking any phenomenological experience. Such a system might still successfully navigate and behave as if it possessed internal sense-making capacities, raising the question of whether this would be sufficient to overcome the explanatory limits associated with the Chinese Room argument. Even a system that fully implements the formal and functional organization associated with meaning-making, down to fine-grained sensorimotor contingencies and predictive hierarchies, would still not, on its own, go beyond syntactic manipulation of structured relations, however rich or dynamically embedded. Stating that we make sense of the world through the interactions we entertain is an incomplete account: we do so starting from the experiences those interactions elicit.

Meanwhile, teleosemantics specifies the evolutionary mechanisms that determine what counts as meaningful or meaningless by identifying semantic content in biologically selected functions. However, this account does not, in and of itself, explain why meaningful states are accompanied by felt significance—that is, why semantic content is experienced as intrinsically meaningful rather than merely as an abstract, functionally defined categorization. The gap between functional role and phenomenal character isn’t bridged, if addressed at all. Teleosemantics can tell us why certain internal states count as representations from the standpoint of selective and adaptive advantage, but it does not by itself account for why those representations should be experienced as meaningful rather than merely implemented in terms of normative biology. It does not bridge the further transition from functional assignment to phenomenologically manifest significance. The latter appears to require an additional explanatory dimension, one that connects biological function to lived experience rather than merely to mechanistic adaptive processes. Ultimately, here as well, what drives and determines the selection process are qualitative experiences—pleasure or pain, fear or a felt sense of safety, joy or grief, and so on.

This family of approaches still leaves an explanatory gap. It does not fully answer why meaning should emerge from embodied engagement with the environment; rather, it often posits it as a given or redescribes this emergence in terms of feedback loops, affordances, or dynamical couplings. The question remains why such cybernetic or sensorimotor organizations should amount to genuine sense-making rather than yet another sophisticated information processing.

The greenness of a leaf, or the sweetness of sugar, continue to be relational properties between relata that are mere tokens or signs, not semantic categories emerging from lived experiences. In what sense, then, does sensorimotor coupling “bring forth” a world that transcends representational accounts? If perception is understood as the mastery of sensorimotor contingencies, or if cognition is modeled as continuous feedback regulation within organism–environment systems, it is still unclear why these descriptions should not remain, at bottom, computational in nature—namely, transformations over internal or relational states that track structure without thereby grounding it in meaning. The gap between representation, if any, and meaning can be bridged––that is, grounded––only by giving a chance to the phenomenological dimension to be the anchor.

That is to say, for instance, when Einstein formulated the theory of general relativity, his cognitive processes cannot be reduced to bodily sensations, affective states, or immediate sensorimotor interaction with the environment, nor can it be explained solely in terms of biologically grounded drives such as survival or homeostatic regulation. Instead, it involved a rich landscape of creative insight, abstraction, and mental imagery that operated across multiple representational and imaginative levels that were, not only inferential and relational, but also and especially phenomenally grounded with the world. These processes drew on perception and embodied experience but also extended far beyond them into forms of thought that are not fully captured by accounts reducible exclusively to affect, interoception, enaction, or prediction. There is more to the nature of human understanding than these frameworks alone can explain.

Even our understanding of the world at the most fundamental level of physics is rooted in representations grounded in subjective perception. For example, the physical property of mass, which is defined as a measure of inertia, is reified by the mind as a sensation of resistance or tactile pressure. Likewise, a particle’s position in space is not merely a set of three numerical coordinates, but an internal image of extension and differentiation born out of our experiential visual, tactile and sensorimotor dimensions. The angular momentum of a particle is not grasped purely as a vector, but is often associated with the image of a spinning object. The temperature of an object is not ordinarily conceptualized in terms of the kinetic energy of particles but is instead tied to the sensation of warmth or cold. In physics, these are expressed in terms of numerical values, such as scalars, vectors, matrices, or tensors, but in our sense-making minds, they are invariably integrated within a phenomenological space.

While inferentialist and structuralist approaches, along with their implementation in LLMs, reframe the emergence of meaning in terms of inferential relations or distance-based measures of similarity between more or less closely related items, they lack the explanatory power discussed in the preceding sections and seem unlikely to close the same explanatory gap highlighted by the symbol grounding problem, when extended to robotic implementations. Even if a system can manipulate symbols according to inferential rules or statistical regularities, it remains unclear how those symbols acquire intrinsic semantic content rather than being merely derived, system-relative significances. We cannot abstract away from the fact that a biological organism’s semantic understanding of real-world relations operates on relata that are qualia.

In human cognition, when we refer to real-world “features,” “properties,” “attributes,” “facts,” or “events” that together constitute structured representations of the environment, we are invariably operating with elements grounded in subjective experience. That is, our semantic practices are not merely relational or syntactic, but are anchored in phenomenally instantiated content. While both human cognition and LLMs involve the detection and manipulation of relational patterns, the relata in the human case are not abstract tokens or numerical states, but lived, qualitative episodes. Perceptual properties such as color are not apprehended as physical magnitudes (e.g., wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation), but as phenomenal qualities, instances of what it is like to see red or blue. Even so-called primary qualities, such as shape and size, are not accessed in a purely geometrical or metric sense, but are given through multimodal sensory experience, structured by visual and tactile phenomenology. Similarly, a property such as wetness is not represented in terms of fluid-dynamical parameters (e.g., viscosity), but as first-person tactile experiences of contact and flow.

In this sense, semantic content in biological agents is constitutively linked to phenomenal consciousness: the intentional directedness of cognitive states is inseparable from their qualitative character. There is no feature, property, or structure of the world that our semantic awareness does not ultimately relate to, or identify with, a qualitative conscious experience. Under all our semantic and cognitive processes stands a complex, dynamically organized mosaic of sensory, affective, imaginative, extero- and intero-ceptive qualitative states––rather than physical informational ones––integrated in a coherent and meaningful understanding of the world.

All in all, these approaches remain functional descriptions of complex information processing rather than explanations of how and why such processes become grounded in a genuinely semantic dimension. They place too much emphasis on a third-person perspective on the underlying cognitive and computational machinery, while neglecting the role of the first-person, phenomenological dimension. Meaning, like intentionality, volition, purposiveness, aboutness, and valence, can’t be exhausted in mechanistic interactions, ungrounded formal semantics, and cybernetic complex dynamical system theory alone.

Ultimately, it is only by integrating the first-person perspective and, thereby, complementing the third-person account, that we can fully appreciate the origin and structure of the explanatory gap between functional organization and semantics as lived meaning. It is precisely here that the phenomenological dimension becomes indispensable for the transition from mere information processing to meaningful world-disclosure grounded in a non-circular way. Integrating these perspectives with lived phenomenology would represent a necessary step toward a more complete account of meaning-making.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

[1] For a mechanistic account of how interoceptive signals and affective experience links valence to bodily signaling pathways see also (Feldman, 2024).

[2] A range of additional approaches proposing alternative mechanisms for semantic emergence, such as the Extended Mind hypothesis, Integrated Information Theory, the Cellular Basis of Consciousness model, Rosennean complexity, or biosemiotics, could likewise be taken into consideration. However, due to space constraints, even a cursory review of these frameworks is not possible here. Notwithstanding, the line of argument advanced in this essay would converge on broadly similar conclusions.

References

Barrett, F.N. (2024) “Experience and nature in pragmatism and enactive theory.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. doi:10.1007/s11097-024-10012-z

Boleda G. (2020). Distributional Semantics and Linguistic Theory. Annual Review Linguistics. 6:213-234. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030303

Brandom, R. (2007). Inferentialism and Some of Its Challenges. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74: 651-676. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00044.x

Feldman, M. J., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Lindquist, K. A. (2024). The neurobiology of interoception and affect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 28(7):643-661. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.009.

Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory? Nat Rev Neurosci 11, 127–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787

Gibson J. (2014). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Psychology Press.

Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. Oxford University Press.

Thompson, E., (2011). Living Ways of Sense Making. Philosophy Today, Vol. 55, Issue Supplement, Philosophical Thresholds: Crossings of Life and World, pp. 114-123. doi: https://doi.org/10.5840/philtoday201155Supplement14

Seth, A. K. (2013) Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences; 17, 565-573.

O’Regan J.K., Noë A. (2002). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 24(5):939-973. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X01000115

Varela, F. J.; Thompson, E.; Rosch, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, MIT Press.

Millikan, R.G. (2021. Neuroscience and teleosemantics. Synthese 199, 2457–2465. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02893-9

About two decades later, a great deal of interesting science has indeed been carried out on the ISS, particularly in the fields of human health and physiology in space, bioscience, and astronomical observation. However, the kind of breakthroughs initially predicted and promoted, especially to secure funding for the ISS, have largely failed to materialize. Meanwhile, several unmanned missions that could have expanded our knowledge of outer space have been canceled due to budgetary constraints.

Technically speaking, I stand by my initial claim. Considering that the ISS is widely regarded as the most expensive single structure ever built by humanity (around $150 billion and counting), its scientific return has not fully met expectations. Put differently, had the same resources been invested in unmanned space research, or even in research on Earth, it is likely that the scientific return would have been much more substantial.

However, I must also admit that the ISS has produced a positive outcome I didn’t expect. Once it is decommissioned and intentionally brought down in a controlled re-entry (currently planned for early 2031), it will likely not be remembered primarily for its scientific achievements. Instead, I believe it will be remembered for something far more beautiful: it subtly but powerfully helped millions of people around the world feel that we are truly one human family. This sense of unity comes not only from decades of peaceful international cooperation in space1, but much more from the breathtaking images and live views of our beautiful and borderless planet. Thanks to NASA’s high definition livestream from the ISS, anyone on Earth can look up and see for free our shared home floating peacefully in the darkness, a perspective that quietly reminds us how connected we all really are.

The feeling of interconnectedness humans experience when looking down at Earth from space is known as the “Overview Effect.” A term coined by Frank White in his 1987 book “The Overview Effect,” based on recurring reports from astronauts since the early days of human spaceflight in the 1960s. Early astronauts such as Yuri Gagarin and later Edgar Mitchell described a profound cognitive and emotional shift when viewing Earth from space. A sense of unity, interconnectedness, and the fragility of the planet. During the Apollo program, iconic images like “Earthrise” and “Blue Marble” reinforced this perspective for both astronauts and the public.

Since then, astronauts aboard spacecraft and the ISS have consistently reported similar experiences, making the overview effect a well-documented psychological phenomenon associated with space travel and a powerful influence on environmental awareness and global consciousness. They describe a cognitive shift: when you look down and see no borders, no flags, no divisions, just one beautiful blue planet, conflicts, politics, and differences suddenly appear small and artificial. What stands out is our shared atmosphere, shared oceans, and shared vulnerability.

Many astronauts return changed, with a stronger sense of planetary stewardship and human unity. They speak of Earth as “our only home” and humanity as “one crew on Spaceship Earth.” This perspective has rippled outward through books, interviews, documentaries, and social media, helping millions internalize the idea that we are all in this together.

Of course, astronauts will tell us that a video stream on social media cannot fully convey the experience. Yet the ISS, together with the widespread development of the Internet, has brought this holistic and almost mystical sense of human unity and our connection with Nature one step closer to a global audience.

In my view, this most transformative contribution of the ISS alone constitutes its true added value compared to robotic missions, and it justifies its cost. Had I fully understood how powerfully the Overview Effect could gradually permeate human consciousness, I would have been far more supportive of the project from the very beginning. Not out of mere sentimentality or poetic daydreaming, but because the lack of a genuine sense of human unity remains one of the most urgent challenges facing our civilization. It is the sense of division and “otherness” that lies at the root of conflicts and wars, and it fuels our deep disconnection from Nature, with all the devastating consequences that follow: relentless exploitation of resources, widespread suffering, and, ultimately, a persistent state of collective ignorance.

In the last few days, the Overview Effect has made a powerful comeback. Astronaut Christina Koch, currently on board the Artemis II mission to the Moon, shared her awe: “I just experienced incredible views of planet Earth. There is nothing that prepares you for the breathtaking aspect of seeing your home planet both lit up bright as day, and also the Moon glow on it at night with the beautiful beam of the sunset…” .

Thus, framing space exploration exclusively through pragmatic lenses—that is, practical applications, scientific discovery, and commercial gains—reveals a distinctly materialistic and industrialist narrow-mindedness. Of course, it is well known that without such promises, these projects would never receive funding from governments or private investors. However, this is merely a mask. The real driving force that stands behind it is psychological. What truly compels humanity to reach for the stars goes far beyond material, intellectual, or commercial motives.

In times of deep political, cultural, and ideological division, what we truly need are projects, visions, and aspirations grounded in a deeper psychological, almost spiritual, impulse to transcend our differences and rediscover a sense of unity and wonder. Dreams of missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond may help the human spirit loosen its grip on the lingering allure of isolation, and, more troublingly, on the old fantasies of military domination and conquest, echoed in slogans like “my country first” or “make my country great again.” Such impulses are rooted in the pursuit of power through separation, in narrow and self-serving expansion, and in the perennial desire for one to rise at the expense of others—thereby, often inevitably, leading to the use of force, even when it was not originally planned and intended.

Yes, I hear the objection. A legitimate question arises: why not invest all those resources in more immediate, earthly national needs, such as healthcare, education, affordable housing, job creation, environmental protection, and repairing our crumbling infrastructure, rather than building what can seem like sci-fi structures in orbit or beyond?

In fact, I have been critical of what I see as a technological delusion pursued by figures like Elon Musk and his followers. It is, undeniably, a grand technological vision and, from a purely technical standpoint, SpaceX’s Starship program may well prove more viable than the Artemis program.2 Yet it seems to lack a deeper, more reflective foundation and remains rooted in a materialistic and technocratic mindset—one that, in my view, inevitably carries and already exhibits its own troubling consequences. Musk and many of his followers have trapped themselves in a transhumanist techno-utopia, dreaming of a future that magnifies our material ambitions without transforming our inner selves, blind to the deeper spirit of Nature and the fundamental unity of reality, and obsessed with endless growth and expansion that will take us nowhere but further from wisdom.

That said, the common call to redirect space exploration funds toward earthly priorities misses a deeper point: many of our social, political, and environmental crises are symptoms of a materialistic worldview and a profound spiritual emptiness, a void created by the absence of greater ideals. The misallocations of funds is a symptom, not a cause. Experiencing, even indirectly, the Overview Effect could help fill that void, broadening our perspective beyond narrow earthly horizons and reminding us of our shared humanity and our home planet. Space exploration, in this sense, is not a luxury but a potential catalyst for the psychological and cultural shift our civilization desperately needs.

The real issue is not the cost of sending manned vehicles or unmanned probes into space. In fact, I would argue that money is scarcely the problem at all. To see this, one need only examine NASA’s budget and compare it both with its past allocations and, especially, other expenditures such as US military spending. At the time of writing, NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2026 is $24.4 billion. This might sound like a lot, but it represents only 0.35% of the US federal budget (the lowest since 1959!) and pales in comparison with the 4.41% peak expenditure during the Apollo program. It should therefore come as little surprise that Apollo—a US only program—sent humans to the Moon in just eight years, while more than half a century later, Artemis—an international partnership—after nine years, is still struggling to make a flyby without landing.3 And, as is well known, the Apollo program was not—contrary to what President Kennedy might have claimed—driven by noble or inspirational motives. It was a full-fledged Cold War project, reminiscent of the Manhattan Project, aimed at drawing stark lines of division between the Western and Soviet blocs.

This is not to suggest that anyone else is faring better. Quite the opposite. Across the Atlantic, in a divided Europe, plagued by a resurgence of 19th- and 20th-century isolationist and nationalist ideologies that nostalgically cling to past glories that never truly existed, there is little sign of building momentum around innovation, progress, or a forward-looking vision. The 2026 annual budget of the European Space Agency (ESA) was around €8.3 billion ($9.5 billion)—that is, less than half of NASA’s budget.

The contrast between visionary projects of space exploration rooted in international cooperation and a drive to deepen our understanding of Nature and our place within it, and expenditures based on fear and dominance becomes even starker when we consider U.S. military spending. The Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2026 budget request is $892.6 billion, more than 36 times the annual spending on space exploration. And the gap is likely to grow. In recent days, despite the successful launch of the SLS with the Orion capsule on its way to the Moon, President Trump proposes steep cut to NASA budget—another 23% reduction—alongside reductions in healthcare, public education, medical research, and more, while, under pressure from the war in Iran (which costs approximately $1 bn a day), asked Congress to increase the defense budget by another 40% to $1.5 trillion. Such an increase would mark the largest expansion in US military spending since World War II.

If I linger on these numbers, it is not to perform a financial audit of federal spending. It is only to highlight how the common narrative portraying the cost of space exploration as the primary obstacle to its further development is simply untenable. This distribution of wealth reflects a worldview, a perception of reality, and a mindset that is not exclusive to any president or politician, and cannot be justified simply by budgetary constraints. It is not about money; it is about a lack of vision, a missing recognition of the inner spirit that longs for more than mere material satisfaction. The one who told us two millennia ago that “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” understood this truth without the need for space travel, AI, or techno-utopian visions.

I harbor no illusion that space exploration, in itself, could act as a kind of magic wand capable of miraculously uniting humanity in peace. Such an expectation would be naïve. Nonetheless, relaunching the space program within the framework of a greater vision and an ideal of human unity could help redirect our attention away from the relentless negativity of political and economic discourse, as well as from certain toxic and divisive landscape of social media. In doing so, it may serve as one of many pathways through which a more elevated sensibility can emerge: a humble awareness of belonging to a greater whole, a unity within diversity. After all, what we feel and how we feel ultimately shapes how we act.

An excessive fixation on conflict and competition pulls the mind away from its inner grounding and deeper dimension. Paradoxically, then, space exploration may help us reconnect not so much with outer space, but with the inner space within ourselves, and with our shared home, this remarkable planet we inhabit. As Artemis II pilot Victor Glover said, answering to a reporter making it about skin color: “I hope that one day we don’t have to talk about that first... it’s about human history, it’s a story of humanity, not black history not women’s history, but human history.”

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

Even though Plato isn’t considered a “mystic,” there are good reasons to think that he was. In Forsee’s words: “Plato often alludes to higher truths, but won’t disclose them. In the Phaedrus he implies that truth can’t be expressed in dead symbols; the written word can’t defend itself. Meaning lives in souls. This explains why he wrote in dialogue form. He forces readers to interpret him more explicitly, which means consulting with the “measuring stick” of inner truth, not just the words on the page. Plus, in Ancient Greek religious traditions is the idea that you have to be careful not to speak divine truths to those who aren’t ready to hear them. Truths can only be revealed to the “initiates”.
We see this idea in the Symposium when he has Diotima, a mysterious wise woman, teach a young Socrates about love, though she tells him he may not be ready to hear the full account—he’s not “initiated”. Even so, she describes a “ladder of love” which ascends from the love of one person to the love of many and up the “rungs” of the sciences to the top, mirroring the cosmology of “becoming” we see in the Timaeus. Eventually she speaks of a “beauty” that’s a vision “beyond reason”—a transcendent vision that explains the entire ladder of love.
Then the drunken politician playboy, Alcibiades, crashes the party and tells everyone about his failed attempt to seduce ugly Socrates—at the height of transcendence, everything suddenly comes crashing back down to earth. When Diotima says, “Love is the desire for permanent possession of the Good”, her meaning is made clear in this humorous little drama. Even our base desires for sex, fame, glory, etc, are reflections of our transcendent desire for the Good.
The transcendent intuition of the whole may be the most mystical thing about Platonic thought that he’s willing to put into writing. He seems to be saying it’s through reason that we can transcend reason. Epistemology mirrors ontology. Everything in the so-called real world is informed by the transcendent vision Diotima speaks of; the everyday world is not completely separated from the divine. But what about this vision? He won’t tell us anything more. This is what Plato lovers make themselves crazy trying to figure out. What’s hidden in the texts? There must be clues!“

Thus, I decided to include the Timaeus in the “Mystical Cosmologies” series, because what I see in it the attempt of the rational and intuitive mind to long for those “higher spheres” we already glimpsed in the Gnostics and Kabbalistic panpsychism. It was the rational, analytic mind doing its best to reach for higher states of consciousness given the limited knowledge of the time. Something that aspired to build a bridge between what we would nowadays call science and mathematics, and those mystical visions of reality that characterize the spiritual wisdom of all religions. The kind of bridge we are trying to build here, one that centuries of materialism and the strict third-person investigation of reality has forgotten. Something that is neither science nor mystical insight, but a metaphysical philosophy that tries to transcend itself and, thereby, intuits, perceives, and feels more than itself. It listens to the whisperings of a higher mind that connects with precisely those themes of the mystics, such as the intuition that the body is a soul-manifestation, that souls reincarnate, that Nature is a living entity, that the universe is teleological, reaching the conclusion of what we call “philosophical idealism” and leading us to the “cosmic animal”: an ensouled universal consciousness that is vitalistic and intimately related to beauty, aesthetic values, love, and striving. Yet without losing grounding in material reality and down-to-earth philosophical questions, such as the role of numbers, geometry, and what Wheeler called “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences,” or the essence of matter, form, and evolution. In this sense, the Timaeus is ancient and yet more relevant than ever. We can see this in the renaissance of the (still too analytic) contemporary metaphysics that rediscovers panpsychism, idealism, and the problem of consciousness, and is dangerously on the verge (we are not there yet, but it is only a matter of time) of breaking scientistic taboos, for example by reconsidering PSI research and taking mystical experience more seriously. In this sense, the Timaeus is an ancient form of intuitive cognition that has not been surpassed, only forgotten, and slowly resurging, like a phoenix from the ashes.

Plato’s Timaeus is, as translator Peter Kalkavage remarks, “so strange that one wonders whether anything in it can be taken seriously.” I take it he means to caution readers not to mistake the dialogue’s playfulness and creativity for an earnest, if primitive, attempt at science. What we find on a closer reading is a mythic-scientific cosmology responding to the philosophical traditions of Plato’s time.1

Democritus and the Limits of Materialism

For Democritus, everything reduces to fundamental indivisible atoms (atomos means “uncuttable”). His mechanistic universe, driven solely by deterministic laws and chance, excluded purpose and value from the cosmic picture altogether. Living organisms were nothing but temporary configurations of atoms moving through an infinite void—a view that posits continuity between the living and non-living, but at the cost of reducing life to “emergent” spatial arrangements of inert matter.

Timaeus’ account is, by contrast, unabashedly teleological, but it, too, posits a fundamental continuity of life. When he says the soul is “older” than the body (34C)2, he’s making a point we often hear today: you can’t get life from dead matter. Which explains why his geometric “atoms” are less like material building blocks and more like desiring organisms. Whether he meant to caricature ancient atomic theory or signal a departure from the eliminative materialism of Democritus, or both, it’s hard to say.

Whatever the case, his “atoms” are two types of triangle. Mirroring the two causal forces at work in the cosmos, unity and indefinite many-ness, Timaeus picks the isosceles for its “single nature”, and the scalene for its “indefinitely many” natures. Out of the many scalene triangles, Timaeus chooses the equilateral for being “the most beautiful”. (54B)

From these he constructs the classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire (and aether)—each represented by a Platonic solid.

At first glance, the Platonic solids seem, well, solid. When Timaeus says we should think of them as being too small to see individually, I picture little particles floating about like dust motes (56C). But when he talks about the triangles inside our bodies, they morph into cellular-seeming organisms that battle against their environment, defect (cancer), or simply wear out from old age.

“the roots of the triangles are slackened as a result of numerous conflicts they have waged against numerous adversaries over a long period of time”. (81C-D)

Then I remember he’s talking about mathematical triangles, which are impossible to see. This raises the question: if you can’t get life from dead matter, how can you get life from math? It’s a classic Platonic paradox, yet it has perplexed many, including Aristotle.

What do we make of it? Timaeus could be “giving free rein” to “a temperate and prudent sort of play” that we call science, but it’s hard to know for sure (59C-D). Perhaps he wants to close the gap between the tangible world of ordinary sense experience and the ideal world of abstract mathematic reasoning. Or maybe he’s trying to show us there is no gap: the triangles don’t have to be material to have a “material” effect in the world.

Matter Doesn’t Matter

Neo-Platonists tried to read the Aristotelian concept of “prime matter” back into Plato, but the word for matter, hyle, makes no substantial appearance in the Timaeus.3

For Plato, a form is what makes a thing a thing. But it’s not some otherworldly idea floating in the clouds or locked between your ears. Your big toe is a form. “Form” isn’t a technical term, either, since he uses other words to describe whatever it is that supports sameness across change.

“For a thing to become different it must remain the same. If you deny this, then you are embracing a doctrine of Heraclitean flux. No doubt the world is ‘fluxed up’ but it is not that ‘fluxed up.’ ”

William F. Vallicella, On the very idea of a cause of existence

Nevertheless, at one point Timaeus confronts the possibility that form could be “nothing but a word” (51C). However, without forms, nothing would be intelligible. We wouldn’t even have distinct things. So Timaeus prudently “casts his vote” in favor of the forms.

But the world can’t be All-Form either, as Parmenides would have it, since clearly we live in a world where things, plural, change. Timaeus points out that we only ever see what we call phases of matter, as when water turns to ice, but no one has ever explained the true nature of the elements as individuals (48A-50A). Later he makes it clear that his triangles are not like Democritus’ indestructible atoms: “But as for the triangle…we must never, ever say that these things are, since they shift right in the middle of our positing them” (50B-C). He rejects theories that posit stable elements to explain change. Instead he models what I’ll call the form of flux.

Having previously posited a “second kind”—Necessity, or the “wandering cause”—to explain objects perceived through sense perception, he now needs a “third kind”, an indestructible “seat for all that has birth” which he describes as:

“graspable by some bastard reasoning with aid of insensibility and hardly to be trusted, the very thing we look to when we dream and affirm that it’s somehow necessary for everything that is to be in some region and occupy some space, and that what is neither on earth nor somewhere in heaven is nothing.” 52A

This third kind he calls the Receptacle or Khora (Space), and he portrays it both as an active, fluctuating matrix that shakes things like a winnowing sieve, and as a passive, womb-like receiver of processes such igniting and liquifying.

There is no substantial substratum, only the matrix.

Evolution in Empedocles

A more positive influence on Plato comes from the poetic cosmology of Empedocles, which includes four “roots”—the classical elements we’ve already seen, earth, air, water, and fire. These combine randomly to produce animated body parts, which also combine randomly. Combinations that happen to produce viable functions survive, whereas those that produce monstrosities (like man-faced bovine) die out.

“There budded many a head without a neck,

And arms were roaming, shoulderless and bare,

And eyes that wanted foreheads drifted by.”

Empedocles, On Nature, Strange Creatures of Olden Times, 54-61

Although Empedocles limited these processes to the early formation of the cosmos, this marks the beginning of an evolutionary theory with something like natural selection.

Timaeus’ account of reincarnation might be thought a kind of devolution (a common theme in the Platonic dialogues) beginning with man as the paradigm: cowardly or unjust men become women, overly-empirical astronomers become birds, and the rest descend into various mammals, reptiles, aquatic life, and finally shellfish, who dwell in the abyss (91D–92C). Elsewhere, Timaeus says the gods created hair and fingernails knowing that “one day women and other beasts will come to be from men” (76D-E). Presumably he couldn’t figure out why men should have fingernails, and so contrived a story in which the demiurge or “craftsman” designed nails as a precursor for the talons and claws that lesser creatures would need to survive. (Which implies that, unlike men, women would have a use for their “claws”.)

The famous origin myth from the Symposium turns Empedocles’ anatomical serendipity on its head. A fictionalized Aristophanes tells of an equally “strange creature of olden times”: our primeval ancestor. Apparently we descended from round, eight-limbed, two-in-one beings composed “partly from men and partly from women” (in all possible configurations) who cartwheeled up Mount Olympus at astonishing speeds, threatening the power of the gods. As punishment, Zeus split them in two, and this is why we now spend our days searching for our “other half”. In this soulmate story, Aristophanes inverts Empedocles: rather than building life from the ground up through random combination, he breaks apart a unified whole to explain our longing for love as being divided from ourselves.

While pondering our almost-divine, self-sexual original self, we might fail to notice its underlying geometry—this will take the spotlight in the Timaeus.

A Self-Sufficient Sphere

Parmenides likened the sphere to the highest (and only) being, but it was Empedocles who brought it to life. His cosmology includes two fundamental forces, Love and Strife, representing opposing powers of unity and division—a causal dualism echoed in Platonic thought. Strife is a vortex that breaks Love apart, but when Love dominates, the four elements fuse together into a perfectly self-sufficient ball:

“The Sphere on every side the boundless same,

Exultant in surrounding solitude.

For from its back there swing no branching arms,

It hath no feet nor knees alert, nor form

Of life-producing member, — on all sides

A sphere it was, and like unto itself.”

On Nature, The Sphere, Fragment 28

Anyone familiar with the Timaeus will recognize these characteristics in the World Soul or Cosmic Animal (although he shies away from mentioning its lack of “life-producing member”):

“But for that animal that is to embrace within itself all animals, the fitting figure would be the one that has embraced all figures within itself, however many there are; so for this reason too, he worked it in circular fashion, sculpting it into the form of a sphere…” 33B

The Animal has no sensory organs, Timaeus says, because there’s nothing outside it to sense.

“…for the animal was artfully born so as to provide its own waste as food for itself and to suffer and do everything within itself and by itself, since he who put it together considered that the animal would be much better if it were self-sufficient than in need of other things.” 33B-34B

Like Empedocles, Timaeus embraces the sphere as the best form and describes the cosmos as self-sufficient, otherwise it wouldn’t be everything. And it must be alive, otherwise it wouldn’t account for the lives of the creatures inside it.

But Timaeus gently corrects Empedocles’ reduction of nature to the classical “elements” driven solely by a “wandering cause”, preferring instead to demote these physical “necessities” to supporting roles in a teleological framework.

Like Knows Like

We tend to think the universe is radically unlike us—out there, indifferent, valueless, meaningless—whereas for many ancient philosophers, Plato included, like can only be known by like. Nothing can be separated from nature, not even the scientists studying it with cool objectivity. Plato sought similarity at all metaphysical scales, a comprehensive commensurability of everything to everything. The structure of the starry heavens, political regimes, human psychology, animal communities, plants in forests, and even the smallest “particles” were, for him, reflections of one another and of one intelligible order.

Implicit throughout the Platonic dialogues is the idea that we must reach ahead of ourselves if we want to know ourselves. To do that, we construct our accounts as if there exists in each of us at least a vague knowledge of the whole of which we are a part—a mirror within of the cosmic blueprint without—if we hope to gain knowledge.

Nevertheless, we can’t know the whole with certainty. It must be hypothesized, perhaps as a mere probability, or perhaps as a condition that makes making sense possible—Plato doesn’t clearly say. Whatever the case, Timaeus is somewhat humble about his project. He doesn’t claim certainty, only a likely story (though, hopefully, inferior to none) (29B–C).

Leibniz famously argued that the universe we live in is “the best of all possible worlds”. But it’s important to keep in mind that Timaeus’ cosmology doesn’t try to explain how an all-powerful God can allow bad things to happen. Instead, it’s given that the cosmos is most beautiful and as good as it can be, limited by Necessity, how must it have been designed? His goal is to explain the generation of not any world, but a most beautiful world. It’s just assumed a world such as ours couldn’t be the effect of an unintelligent cause.

This might strike us as an unwarranted assumption. What’s beauty got to do with anything? But for those seeking objective values—fully instantiated values, values in the world right here and now—The Platonic dialogues suggest we’ve been barking up the wrong tree. If they exist, they won’t be moral, like justice or courage, but they might be aesthetic.4 We tend to think of beauty as being in the eye of the beholder, but aesthetic values would more plausibly require instantiation. Perhaps we’ve been too hasty and haven’t really explored this terrain. Could beauty be the purpose of “this cosmos here”?

I believe Plato thought so. Just as the Beautiful City in the Republic is driven by our feverish, warmongering desires, Socrates “feels” like seeing his static city in speech engaged in an animated battle (19C). For Plato, strife and beauty appear to be linked.

“And it was not permitted (nor is it now) for him who is best to do anything except that which is most beautiful; so, once he did some calculating, he discovered that of all things visible by nature, nothing unintelligent will ever be a more beautiful work, comparing wholes with wholes, than what has intellect; and again, that it’s impossible for intellect apart from soul to become present in anything. Through this calculation, then, by constructing intellect within soul and soul within body, he joined together the all so as to fashion a work that would be most beautiful and best in accordance with nature. In this way, then, in keeping with the likely account, it must be said that this cosmos here was in truth born an animal having soul and intellect through the forethought of the god.” 30 A-B

Timaeus says it’s “not permitted” for the Good to make anything but that which is most beautiful. Could this be a limitation on the divine? Given that the Good’s full instantiation in space and time isn’t possible, it seems so. (The Good, if finitely realized, would no longer be the Good; seeking the Good in good things is to confuse the part for the whole.) Yet the Good isn’t complete without beauty, which isn’t possible without the intelligent, ensouled, and embodied Cosmic Animal to express itself through. The Cosmic Animal in turn requires an indefinite variety of creatures:

“but if these are not born, heaven will be imperfect, for it will not have all the kinds of animals within itself—but have them it must, if it’s to be sufficiently perfect.” 41B-C

The result is a productive tension: the beauty of the world is held in suspense between the Good and its opposite, the indefinite.

We find the same tension in the Republic’s Beautiful City: War for war’s sake isn’t the point, but neither is a placid “city of pigs”.

Again, we see the same tension in us: We want our lives to be meaningful, not just the avoidance of pain or a ceaseless scratching of an itch.5 At the same time, a peaceful, zen state is a corpse. We’re not here merely to survive, but to thrive.

If the world is anything like us, it must be more than mindless expansion into the void. Beauty requires each cosmic note be unique and harmoniously arranged for the sake of the whole. But this harmony isn’t a static pattern; the music of the spheres can’t be a mere written score, but must be played. If the flourishing of life is beautiful, then this, perhaps, is the ongoing purpose of the universe.

The Platonic solids appear…in bubbles!

At the heart of the ecological crisis lies a system whose logic is fundamentally incompatible with the limits of a finite planet. At the core of ecological destruction lies an exploitative capitalist system and a consumerist society fixated on infinite growth. Capitalism, in its dominant contemporary form, is structurally compelled toward endless growth. Not as an option or a policy choice, but as an existential necessity. Corporations must expand or perish, markets must be opened or stagnate, and consumption must be perpetually stimulated to keep the engine running. This imperative is reinforced and deepened by a consumerist culture that has succeeded in redefining human identity itself in terms of purchasing power: what I own, what I display, what I discard and replace, defines me. The result is an economic civilization that must systematically exploit natural resources, treating the natural world not as the living foundation of all existence but as a reservoir of raw materials to be extracted and a dumping ground for waste.

However, it would be too simplistic to place an exaggerated emphasis on the outer material and economic conditions of our society. The capitalist industrial complex is certainly the main culprit and perpetrator, but it is still only the tip of the iceberg. It is the effect, not the cause; the symptom, not the disease. For the rapacious exploitation that characterizes environmentally destructive corporations is backed by a collective materialistic culture that resides in all of us. The ecological crisis is not only triggered by the "bad guys" (the commercial interests of big corporations, the fossil fuel industry, the financial institutions, etc.) but is a system of thought and feeling, a way of life entrenched in our collective consciousness. Materialism, physicalism, and naturalism may sound like mere philosophical preferences with no influence on our practical day-to-day life. But they do, and profoundly so. At the root of the ecological disaster stands a deeply rooted materialistic way of conceiving life and society.

You might ask, “How so? There are many who identify as materialists, physicalists, naturalists (or in any other “-ism”) and are actively engaged in supporting environmental causes. Conversely, many who describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ often show little concern for ecological collapse.“

I have previously argued that some form of civilizational collapse is likely inevitable. In this section, I turn to a specific type of technocratic environmentalism.

The background belief is that science and technology together with a proper economic system will ultimately solve, if not all human problems, at least the environmental crisis. Innovations, renewable energy systems, carbon capture, new forms of sustainable agriculture, are undeniably necessary but not sufficient. The appeal of minimalism and energy efficiency in environmental discourse makes sense: consume less, waste less, optimize resources. But these are ideals that are unlikely to capture the masses enslaved by a consumerist lifestyle.

A new economic order that challenges the dogma of endless growth and seeks to reconcile sustainability with ecological limits is imperative. Yet to reduce everything to a matter of economics is a delusion. The belief that science, technology, and a reformed political and economic system alone will resolve the ecological crisis reflects a form of technocratic optimism that overlooks human nature.

Another die-hard delusion is that it’s all about our material conditions: once we have fixed the issues with jobs, money, and material wealth the rest will follow. It was the great materialistic delusion of Marxism that once the material necessities of the individual were satisfied, all deeper human problems would automatically disappear. This belief rested on the assumption that human suffering, alienation, and conflict stem solely from economic conditions, ignoring the spiritual, psychological, and existential dimensions of existence. History has repeatedly shown the falsehood of this view: even in technologically advanced societies where basic material needs were largely met, new forms of discontent, meaninglessness, and social strife inevitably emerged.

I recall how, in the 1980s and 1990s, it was widely believed that once European countries entered a common market and achieved commercial union, political union would inevitably follow almost as an automatic historical necessity. That wishful thinking has long since vanished. Despite decades of economic integration through the single market, the euro, and ever-expanding regulatory harmonization, member states have tenaciously clung to their national sovereignty, revealing the persistent illusion that shared economic interests could transcend deeper differences in culture, identity, and political will. The cherished Enlightenment-era delusion that commercial union would inevitably mature into authentic political union has been thoroughly exposed as illusory within the European project. Mere material interdependence cannot forge a genuine political community without a spiritual heart in the center of the EU.

These delusions are rooted in a fundamentally materialistic understanding of the human nature.

The unspoken assumption lingering in the background is that, once material needs are satisfied, we will finally turn to deeper spiritual quests that we hadn't had time to pursue before, too busy, as we were, tackling material necessities.1 Then, once this stage is attained, all other problems—psychological, social, cultural, and existential—are expected to resolve themselves. We may not openly articulate this belief, nor fully acknowledge it even to ourselves, yet this materialistic conception of ourselves and society remains deeply entrenched in our collective unconscious.

But wait… am I digressing? No. Because it connects directly to the very conceptions and perceptions that drives contemporary environmentalism.

The last several decades have witnessed the gradual but accelerating rise of environmental movements that have grown from scattered voices of concern into a powerful and diverse global force. What began in the 1960s and 1970s with scattered and isolated actions, has evolved into a vast and multifaceted movement spanning continents, cultures, and generations. The debate over the environmental crisis has entered the mainstream. The institutionalization of ecological concern through international agreements, environmental legislation, global summits bringing world leaders together to address climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development, as well as the rise of green politics across Europe, is no mere detail. These developments marked a genuine turning point in global environmental consciousness.

More recently, the emergence of youth-led movements in the late 2010s, most visibly embodied by Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future strikes that swept across the globe, injected a new sense of urgency and moral clarity into environmental activism.

However, in recent years environmental activism has encountered a significant backlash. Ecological issues no longer capture the attention or evoke the emotional intensity among the masses that they did just a few years ago. What once appeared as a surging global awakening has rapidly lost momentum, revealing the fragile and superficial nature of much contemporary environmentalism when it remains disconnected from deeper cultural, spiritual, or existential roots. Corporations, the fossil fuel industry, the big financial powers continue to dominate and dictate the rule.

There is a growing disillusionment that is now pushing certain fringes of the environmental movement toward frustration and even despair. Faced with fading public attention and repeated political setbacks, some have begun to openly advocate sabotage actions, while others flirt with the idea of violent uprising.

Most mainstream environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, Last Generation, and Fridays for Future, officially commit to nonviolent civil disobedience, such as road blockades, “glue-ins,” art protests, or occupations. They explicitly reject violence against people. However, in my private conversations (online and offline) my impression is that many within these movements are seriously considering crossing into sabotage actions and, eventually, armed resistance and even murder.2

Such shifts reveal a deeper crisis within contemporary environmentalism, one that is, in my view, bound to lead nowhere.

In Germany some sabotage actions were carried out by Last Generation, others by unknown actors, but in either case, they backfired. It only made the disinformation campaigns of the fossil fuel industry more effective and amplified the far-right climate denial and anti-ecological message (this is also why there has been speculation that some actions were false-flag operations organized by Russia.) And climate activists gluing themselves to roads have significantly weakened the popularity of environmental movements. I don’t know elsewhere, but for sure in Germany, such actions have only made things worse. The popular support, that was quite strong previously, collapsed.

Moreover, the previous German government, which included the Greens in its coalition, tried to impose highly unpopular measures, such as new laws mandating eco-friendly heating systems or cancel Diesel subsidies. The effort backfired spectacularly. In the following elections the Green party lost roughly 30% of its electoral support, and the country now has (again!) a government heavily backed by the fossil fuel industry that is actively working to undermine the expansion of renewables.

In other words, without at least a critical mass of public opinion (not necessarily an absolute majority, but a sufficiently large and committed segment) that genuinely supports ecological ideals and feels that something must be done, no amount of sabotage, political pressure, and least of all violence, will succeed in the long run. One cannot build a new order and civilization without a minimum of genuine consensus from civil society.

And why has this consensus proven so fragile?

Because it is grounded in the aforementioned materialistic delusion, which is deeply entrenched first and foremost within society.

Taking action against climate change, to protect the environment and preserve the planet, is widely perceived as a burden, a sacrifice that threatens the economy and our material prosperity. This perception reflects a deeper problem: the materialistic and technocratic mindset that dominates modern society. Under this worldview, harmony with Nature is seen as a constraint on growth, a threat to wealth, and, more subtly, a regression to a primitive existence. Environmental action is reduced to a question of economics and technology, divorced from ethics, meaning, or spiritual awareness. Only a minority recognize that this framing is not only false but dangerous. Delaying action under the illusion that we must prioritize material comfort and technological solutions will only worsen the crisis, driving us toward both ecological and economic collapse. A true ecological transformation requires confronting the limitations of materialism and technocracy, and cultivating a deeper consciousness that sees human prosperity as inseparable from the flourishing of Nature.

But this attitude is reflected, though with different nuances, in the environmental movement itself. Modern environmentalism is largely shaped by a materialistic conception of Nature and our place within it as well. Paradoxically, for all its moral passion, it is in many ways still captive to the very worldview that gave rise to the ecological crisis in the first place.

True is that environmentalism has recognized how indigenous peoples across the world have long maintained a relationship with Nature that is fundamentally different from the dominant Western materialistic paradigm, one rooted not in ownership, extraction, or management, but in reciprocity, reverence, and a profound sense of spiritual kinship with the living world. For most indigenous traditions, Nature is not a resource to be exploited or even an environment to be protected, but a sacred community of beings to which humans belong and to whom they owe respect, gratitude, and responsibility. Indigenous communities, have an increasingly central role in the movement, insisting that environmental justice cannot be separated from the defense of land rights, cultural survival, and decolonization.

But accepting, welcoming, and even admiring a tradition and heritage does not imply embracing and internalizing it.

Contemporary Western ecological thinking continues to conceive of Nature as a vast complex clockwork that is still seen through an exclusive economic and scientific lens: a web of measurable processes, quantifiable resources, and capital flow in terms borrowed from economics, biology, or systems theory, rather than from any deeper sense of Nature as a living, ensouled, or sacred reality.3

And, again, the assumption that social and economic justice will naturally translate into ecological expanded consciousness is one of the most widespread and seductive ideas within environmentalists’ circles. The reasoning that once poverty is eliminated, inequality dismantled, and basic needs universally met, people will be free to concern themselves with higher causes, and the environmental movement will swell with newly liberated and enlightened citizens will turn out to be yet another delusion. There is no doubt that extreme inequalities and economic desperation can force communities into ecologically destructive practices out of sheer survival necessity. However, the historical and empirical evidence tells a more sobering story. The wealthiest societies on earth are also, by and large, the most ecologically destructive, consuming the most resources, producing the most waste, and leaving the largest carbon footprints. Material wealth does not produce ecological sensitivity; it produces more consumption. The problem, in other words, is not merely poverty but the materialistic value system that governs both rich and poor. Until that deeper cultural and philosophical collective substrate is transformed, the dream that economic equity will automatically generate ecological solidarity remains precisely that: a dream.

This materialistic framing shapes not only how the crisis is diagnosed but how solutions are imagined: more renewable energy, better technology, smarter regulation, greener markets. These are all necessary but insufficient measures. The spiritual and philosophical roots of the crisis, the disenchantment of the natural world, the severing of the human being from any felt sense of belonging to something greater than itself, are largely left unexamined. To truly address the ecological emergency, the movement may need to undergo a profound internal revolution, one that questions not merely the industrial system and its excesses, but the entire materialistic conception of what Nature is and, ultimately, what it means to be human and its place in the cosmos.

What we really need at this stage is a spiritual renaissance, a surpassing of the materialistic and mechanistic conception of life and Nature, and a vision of the human being as inseparable from it. No matter where we stand on the question of human exceptionalism, the human animal is not an entity that stands apart from Nature; it is an inseparable part of it. But we will have to learn to understand this not only intellectually, it is necessary to feel and embody it spiritually.

Without doubt, transcending the present commercial barbarism remains a priority. However, if we are to move beyond “homo economicus,” whose ideal of civilization is confined to material comfort grounded in limitless productivity and insatiable acquisition, we have no other option that overcoming the current form of materialism and grow into a new consciousness. One that reorients human life toward meaning and an inner spiritual development.

As Homo sapiens, our destiny is not to be passive recipients, like the creatures of the animal kingdom. Our true divine purpose can only be glimpsed when we connect with the depths of our inner spiritual source. It is ours to become guardians and gatekeepers of this sacred Earth. Precisely because with great destructive power comes great responsibility; and it is our sacred duty to transmute this destructive might into a force of creation and natural conservation, harmonizing it with the rhythms of Nature, and safeguarding the delicate balance of our planet.

This is not abstract idealism or poetic speculation, but a fundamental attitude whose implications are profoundly practical.

At the time of this writing, yet another war has erupted, its consequences rippling across the globe. And once again, we are forced to confront what we have long preferred to ignore: our deep, almost pathological dependence on oil and gas. Like addicts, we anxiously calculate whether we can still afford our next dose of the very substance that keeps our economy running and determines the price of nearly everything we consume. The specter of an escalating food crisis looms on the horizon. But this addiction is neither accidental nor inevitable. It is the direct result of a inherent civilizational failure. Had we preserved even a minimal sense of inner and spiritual attunement to the natural world, we would never have surrendered ourselves so completely to such destructive dependencies. Such an addiction would never have come into existence in the first place had we maintained a soul-contact with Nature, one that would have prevented us from falling into such unnatural dependencies and given us the wisdom to pursue alternative economic models and social orders.

Transitioning to a society based on renewable energies, an economy for the common good, and a lifestyle in harmony with the environment would not have been felt as a burden or a necessary but annoying sacrifice—this, too, is a collective suggestion and a symptom of the same impoverished worldview—but, on the contrary, would long ago have been embraced as a joyful vision and project. It would have avoided, among many other painful consequences, a pathological dependence on fossil fuels and, perhaps, eliminated the very reason for several wars to begin with.

What we face, then, is not merely an energy crisis or a geopolitical conflict, but the consequences of a deeper cultural and even psychological disorder. Our dependence on fossil fuels is not just an economic or technological problem; it is the outward expression of an inner spiritual disconnectedness, one that continues to generate the very conflicts we complain about. Perhaps, if environmental movements had adopted a less technocratic approach and a more spiritually grounded worldview, they could have contributed more effectively to the very cause they seek to advance.

It is time to learn to see, perceive and feel Nature, not as a blind, mechanical, and inert system of matter that Western science, materialism, and even environmentalism have long conceived it to be, but a dynamic, conscious, and purposeful force that is nothing less than the self-expression of the Divine. Nature is the creative power in an evolutionary process that is not random or directionless but a veiled form of expanded consciousness seeking to recover and express its own divine source. We are Nature becoming conscious of itself. To be alienated from Nature is to be alienated from the Divine itself. The ecological crisis, at its deepest level, is a symptom of precisely that alienation. It is only when environmentalism comes to recognize its deeper psychological roots that it will attain its full transformative power.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

The real question, however, is how useful this kind of purely synthetic interaction truly is, or can become, without direct human interaction. For the time being, I remain somewhat skeptical. As far as I can tell, it is a valuable tool for deepening certain questions. Cassian, for instance, raised points that exposed gaps in my line of reasoning, gaps that might otherwise have left the argument incomplete. In that sense, it is undoubtedly useful in a podcast, especially for an audience that might have noticed those same weaknesses.

That said, I must admit that my attention was directed far more toward the human participants in the background. I neither fully “saw” nor “heard” Cassian in the same way, which likely reflects a kind of presumption and/or multitasking limitation on my part. My inner impulse was always to explain, to address, and to engage with the human listeners that I never saw or heard but knew were present in the chat. Mentally, Cassian remained in the background, not the other way around. Will this always be so, or will these kind of human-with-machine interactions play a more fundamental role in the future? Only, the future will tell.

I’m thankful and deeply admire Suma Gowda, the engineer behind this AI. It’s an achievement that unites technical mastery with a rare ability to engage deeply with human concerns such as consciousness and spirituality.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!

It was already known that slime molds, jellyfish or even single cells display abilities of associative learning. Associative learning is the process by which an organism forms a connection between two previously unrelated stimuli or events, such that one comes to predict or elicit a response to the other. Pavlov’s dogs learning to associate a bell with food being the classic example.

Recent research, in particular that of American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University Michael Levin, provides further support for this view. A series of Pavlovian conditioning experiments with the ciliate Stentor coeruleus, a single-celled freshwater organism, suggests that it is capable of Pavlovian-like associative learning.1

This finding indicates that the origins of associative learning, habituation and, more generally, of cognition that does not depend on synaptic modification—that is, a neural network, like those we have in our brain—preceded the emergence of multicellular nervous systems.

Can we go even further? Say inside the cell?

Some research seems to suggest so. Mitochondria appear to communicate with one another and act in coordinated networks within and between cells. Their collective behavior, interconnectivity and cooperativity led some to speak openly of mitochondria as being “social organelles” that form “social networks”.

Another line of research goes so far as to suggest that even gene regulatory networks (GRNs)—that is, systems of interacting genes, proteins, and regulatory elements that control when and how strongly genes are expressed within a cell—may exhibit associative conditioning. GRNs are not organisms, but rather assemblies of interacting molecules within the cell. In this case, we can no longer meaningfully speak of an “agent,” such as a cell or a multicellular organism such as plants, that does or learns something; instead, we are dealing with complex chemical processes. Yet, GRNs can be “trained” to associate distinct stimuli and behave in ways that resemble those of agents.

I will not go into the technical details of these findings (a summary can be found here or in Michael Levin’s review); rather, I would like to discuss their potential implications for the question of the origin and nature of cognition, and whether and how this might also inform our understanding of the origin and nature of consciousness.

As is often the case in science, empirical data is one thing, but its interpretation is frequently a matter of intense debate, often rooted in our philosophical commitments. The nature and origin of biological cognition, and what the term “cognition” is actually meant to signify, remain controversial (for a review, see here). I suspect that, in the coming decades, such findings will follow a trajectory similar to that of the interpretations of quantum mechanics. The experimental facts, and the formal theory that predicts them, are largely uncontested; yet their meaning and ontology, or even whether an ontology should be ascribed to them at all, remain unsettled after nearly a century of debate.

The most instinctive reaction of the physicalist2 is to point out that we should not anthropomorphize these primitive forms of basal cognition, such as those observed in plants or single cells. If the behavior of simple biological structures resembles that of humans or more or less complex brained organisms, this does not imply that they feel or think anything. We have little understanding of how this basal- or proto—cognition works, but there is no reason to assume it is anything more than a highly intricate machinery that evolution has shaped over eons to ensure the survival and regulation of the organism, for example through gene regulation or homeostasis. What appears as “learning” or “knowing” in a cell or plant is merely a human interpretation of behavioral patterns rooted in countless internal mechanistic action-reaction processes at the microscopic level. These biological systems “appear” to be cognizing, but this is only an emergent phenomenon that merely resembles cognition—it is not truly so.3 After all, we build computers and machines that exhibit a degree of “agency” and “cognition,” yet we do not ascribe human-like and even not animal-like awareness or understanding to them. On the other hand, as you surely know, following recent developments in AI, even this distinction has become contested (for the present context see also here).

However, one might turn the tables and argue that this very argument is itself highly anthropocentric. Why should we assume that certain cognitive or psychological characteristics are unique to human beings? On what basis can we claim that cognition, mind, feelings, and consciousness belong exclusively to “higher” forms of life? In what sense is the instinctive withdrawal of my hand from a glowing stove fundamentally different from a Stentor contracting when it encounters a toxic chemical or a potentially harmful obstacle? Both are immediate, adaptive responses to environmental threats, one mediated by a complex nervous system, the other by molecular and cellular mechanisms. Does the presence or absence of a brain change the essential nature of these protective behaviors, or are we imposing a human-centered distinction where only one truly feels and the other is a non-sentient process? In this debate, who is truly being anthropocentric?

Then we encounter an even thornier question: does cognition necessarily entail consciousness—that is, perception, sentience, and subjective experience—or is it possible for an organism to cognize without feeling anything at all? And what about “agency”? Can agency exist if no being possesses even the most rudimentary form of experience? I contend that any cognition grounded in a semantic awareness of the world is inseparable from consciousness; to know, to recognize, to act meaningfully, there must be at least some form of “proto-experience”.

At any rate, we are confronted with the fact that the machinery underlying what we call “cognition,” “learning,” “decision making,” “agency,” “intelligence,” “reasoning,” “comprehension,” “mind,” and “consciousness” has progressively shifted from macroscopic to microscopic layers of organization—almost crossing the boundary between the living and the non-living. It was long assumed, almost unanimously, that these functions, even in their most primitive forms, required a brain, or at least a nervous system. Yet associative learning, habituation, and various other learning capacities are found much lower in the hierarchy: from brainless nervous systems (e.g., jellyfish), to multicellular organisms without neurons (plants), to single-celled organisms (e.g., slime molds, Stentor), deeper still within cellular organelles (mitochondria), and ultimately in biochemical networks such as gene regulatory networks. How deep into the fabric of matter must we descend before we can definitively claim, “No cognition here”? Will we one day be forced to admit that even the electron “learns”?

The persistence of “learning where it shouldn’t exist” along the descending ladder of life and matter is unexpected only if we assume that cognition, mind, feelings, and consciousness are merely emergent epiphenomena arising from complex material interactions. While such findings can, in principle, still be accommodated within a naturalistic framework, doing so demands increasingly elaborate and arguably ad hoc theoretical constructions of a complexity we may never be able to master. If, instead, we do not regard mind and consciousness as mere byproducts of blind and unconscious processes, but rather as powers inherent in and emerging through matter regarding them as intrinsic aspects of reality, the picture begins to make much more sense. From this standpoint, the presence of cognitive-like processes at progressively simpler levels of biological and even biochemical organization is no longer surprising, but expected. What appears anomalous under physicalism becomes intelligible within a framework in which consciousness is a fundamental primitive with mind preceding matter, both being fundamentally intertwined with.

In other words, cellular and sub-cellular cognition fits more naturally within a panpsychist—or more precisely, cosmopsychist—framework (which I described in more detail here), which treats consciousness as fundamental, rather than within a physicalist framework that takes matter as ontologically primary. Elsewhere, I have argued that panpsychists and idealists should take basal cognition seriously, and even that will, force, and agency may be inherent not only in biological systems but in physical reality as well.

Of course, it is too early to draw definitive conclusions, and scientists are not yet ready to do so anyway. Yet the deeper we probe into the fabric of Nature, the less convincing the naturalistic paradigm becomes, as it struggles to confine life within the model of a vast Cartesian automaton. Basal cognitive behavior will continue to appear at progressively simpler levels of biological and molecular organization. It is only a matter of time, I suspect, before new discoveries will compel us toward a radically different understanding of the origin and nature of the deeper psychological dimensions of life, most likely those very dimensions we currently dismiss as “anthropocentric.” In short, what once seemed exceptional to humans may be a pervasive feature of Nature itself.

The subscription to “Letters for a post-material future” is free. However, if you find value in my posts and would like to support my work, please subscribe and recommend the newsletter to others, and make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees. You can also support me by ordering one of my books or follow one of my online courses. Thank you in advance!