Integrating cosmology and consciousness

[Geoff Dann]

Overview of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos (2012)​

Nagel’s central claim is that materialist reductionism fails to explain essential features of reality — especially consciousness, reason, and value. But after rejecting materialism, he doesn’t call for supernatural explanations. Instead, he argues for a radically expanded form of naturalism.

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Consequences for Naturalism and Science​

1. Naturalism Must Be Reconceived

• Nagel wants to retain naturalism — the idea that everything is part of the natural world — but naturalism need not be materialist.
• He proposes a teleological naturalism: nature may include goal-directed principles that are not reducible to physics.
• Evolution, in this view, may be guided by laws that favor the emergence of consciousness and reason — not by chance alone.

1. Science Must Broaden Its Framework

• If mind, reason, and value are fundamental, then science must develop new theoretical tools that can accommodate them as such.
• This implies the need for a future science that includes mental phenomena as basic, not as by-products of physical processes.
• Nagel compares this shift to the way physics once had to reconceive space and time — we may need a similar shift to account for mind.

1. Teleology Without Theism

• He suggests a non-theistic teleology: the universe might have a built-in propensity toward the development of consciousness, rationality, and moral awareness.
• This is not intelligent design in the theistic sense, but a natural bias or directionality in the laws of nature.

1. Reason and Objectivity Are Real

• If reason (not just computation or instinct) is a genuine feature of reality, then it cannot be explained by a purely physical process.
• Nagel insists that we must treat reason as a non-accidental aspect of the universe — with its own kind of normativity and structure.

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What Does Nagel Think We Need to Be Searching For?​

• An Expanded Metaphysics: One that includes mind and value as fundamental features of the universe, not as emergent epiphenomena.
• New Scientific Paradigms: Not supernatural, but not reducible to physics either — perhaps incorporating aspects of phenomenology, teleology, or unknown mental laws.
• A New Synthesis: He hopes for a “more adequate conception of the natural order,” which might someday unify physical, biological, mental, and normative realities.

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In a Nutshell​

Once you accept that materialism is false, Nagel says we’re faced with this task:

Rebuild naturalism from the ground up to account for mind, reason, and value as basic features of the universe — not accidents or illusions.

This means science, philosophy, and metaphysics must undergo a deep revision, aiming not at supernaturalism, but at a naturalistic pluralism that acknowledges the reality of consciousness and normativity.
And we might as well do Stapp at the same time:

Henry Stapp’s Mindful Universe: Core Argument​

Henry Stapp, a quantum physicist trained in the tradition of Heisenberg and von Neumann, argues that consciousness must be central to the scientific picture of reality — not peripheral, as in classical materialism.
He builds this argument on the foundations of quantum mechanics, especially the measurement problem, which suggests that conscious observation plays an active role in shaping physical reality.

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After Materialism: What Changes?​

1. Naturalism Becomes Quantum-Interactive​

• Like Nagel, Stapp remains a naturalist — but for him, nature is quantum at its core, not classical.
• Classical materialism assumed that the universe runs like a mechanical clock. Quantum physics shows this is false.
• In the quantum worldview, consciousness is not outside of nature, but a dynamic part of its unfolding.

2. Mind is an Active Agent in Physics​

• According to the von Neumann interpretation (which Stapp champions), the observer’s conscious choices of questions (measurements) actually influence the physical outcome.
• The mind doesn’t merely observe the universe — it participates in its evolution.

“Conscious choices of which questions to pose have consequences in the unfolding of physical events.”

• This overturns the idea that mind is just a passive by-product of matter.

3. The Collapse of the Wave Function is Mental​

• Stapp sees wave function collapse as the point where mind and matter intersect.
• This collapse is not random or mechanical — it reflects a choice made by consciousness.
• Thus, mental intentions are causally efficacious — they affect what physically happens.

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Implications for Science​

1. Science Must Include Consciousness​

• Stapp argues that we must abandon the outdated view that science deals only with objective matter.
• A new science of mind and mattermust:
  • Be based on quantum mechanics, not classical physics.
  • Treat conscious agency as fundamental.
  • Incorporate subjective experience into the structure of reality.

2. Ethical and Psychological Consequences​

• Since conscious intention affects physical outcomes, this has implications for free will, ethics, and mental health.
• For example, mental states like belief, attention, and intention may directly impact the brain’s physical state — through quantum effects.

3. Mind as an Organizer of Physical Events​

• In his “Quantum Zeno Effect” arguments, Stapp suggests that sustained attention or mental focus can stabilize certain neural patterns, giving agency to willful thought.
• This may offer a new framework for understanding things like meditation, neuroplasticity, or even psychosomatic healing.

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What Are We Searching For, According to Stapp?​

• A scientific worldview where consciousness is fundamental, not epiphenomenal.
• A unified ontologywhere:
  • Quantum physics provides the structure.
  • Mind is not reduced to brain, but is an irreducible player in the cosmic process.
• A new paradigm where meaning, purpose, and experience are scientifically relevant.

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In a Nutshell​

Once we reject materialism, Stapp says we must adopt a quantum-informed naturalism, where:

Mind is a causal force that interacts with matter at the deepest level.

This demands a reconstruction of science itself, aligning it with the quantum reality that our choices and experiences help to bring the world into being.

Both of the above books are revolutionary attempts to bring consciousness back into the scientific picture of reality from which it was excluded by Descartes and Galileo during the Renaissance. Both of them are basically correct (IMO) but they are also both incomplete.

In Nagel’s case the incompleteness is due to the fact he’s neglected to pay enough attention to physics – to quantum mechanics. The only thing he says about QM is that because it is probabilistic, it provides scope for the teleological evolution of conscious organisms (“psychegenesis” in my own terminology) that he’s arguing is the only reasonable naturalistic explanation still remaining on the table after materialism is rejected. He does not mention the measurement problem or any of the interpretations.

In Stapp’s case the incompleteness is because he does not mention evolution at all. His theory involves what he calls “the Participating Observer” collapsing the wavefunction (this is not an optional part of his theory – it’s what the whole thing is about). But both of them accept that brains are required for minds (minds are complex things, the PO is not a mind but the observer of a mind). This leaves us with the question “What collapsed the wave function before the first conscious organism evolved?”, and Stapp makes no attempt to answer it. The problem is that if something else was collapsing the wavefunction before conscious organisms existed in the cosmos, then why would we need to posit consciousness as collapsing the wavefunction now?

This looks like a fatal problem to the people who raise it as an objection to Stapp’s theory. But it is not. There is a very obvious default answer. What collapses the wavefunction before conscious organisms did? Answer: nothing did. And if nothing was collapsing the wavefunction during that phase of cosmic and biological evolution, then the cosmos can only have been in an MWI-like superstate. Every possible outcome would be occurring in an ever-expanding MWI-like multiverse. This would absolutely guarantee that in one very special timeline, all of the events take place which lead to the evolution of conscious organisms. Then at the moment that psychegenesis is completed in that special timeline – the abiogenesis-psychegenesis timeline – the primordial wavefunction would have collapsed. This provides a perfect, beautiful explanation for Nagel’s teleological evolution but without the need for any of the teleological laws that Nagel says we should be looking for. Not only do we not need these teleological laws, we don’t need God either. Or at least, we don’t need a God which is capable of making decisions about the course of evolution – we don’t need any divine intelligence. Everything needed to make it happen is already there.

Please somebody tell me they have understood what I am trying to explain. I believe it is the key to unlocking the whole paradigm shift we’re trying to manifest. Between them, Nagel and Stapp are providing almost everything needed as a scientific foundation for 2R. My argument above joins their two theories together not only with each other but with a whole bunch of other stuff too. It provides the missing explanation for the Cambrian Explosion. It explains why we can’t find any aliens out there – because the primordial superposition could only collapse once – psychegenesis could only happen in one timeline, and only on one planet. Which puts Earth back at the centre of the universe. And we’ve got rid of the measurement problem in QM, and the hard problem of consciousness. And it doesn’t end there. This opens up a whole new paradigm to explore. The implications are mind-boggling and I’ve never had anybody to discuss this stuff with.

Does anybody get it?

Edit: to help people understand. What is completely new about my own proposal is that it combines two radically different interpretations of quantum theory. It proposes that there have been two phases to cosmic and biological evolution. Something like MWI was true before conscious life existed, and consciousness has been causing the collapse since then. The phase shift occurred just before the beginning of the Cambrian explosion. What we’ve failed to understand is that at that moment it wasn’t just a new branch of life that came into existence (conscious animals), but that a new sort of existence had emerged. This is exactly what Nagel says we should be looking for:

What has to be explained is not just the lacing of organic life with tincture of qualia but the coming into existence of subjective individual points of view – a type of existence logically distinct from anything describable by the physical sciences alone.

On their own, neither Stapp nor Nagel are providing enough of the picture. You have to put them together before the gestalt shift can take place.

I have never encountered another person who has read both of these books. I have so far only encountered one person who understood the core idea when I explained it briefly to them. He was a French physicist I ran into on Reddit, who was somewhat frustrated at how poorly understood the interpretations of QM are within the wider scientific community.

2PC Synthesis:​

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Core Argument​

2PC proposes a cosmic phase transition at the moment consciousness evolved. Prior to that, reality unfolded as a many-worlds quantum superposition. After that, the emergence of conscious observers caused the first true collapse of the wavefunction, initiating a new kind of existence: subjective experiential reality.

This theory fuses and completes the accounts of Thomas Nagel (Mind and Cosmos) and Henry Stapp (Mindful Universe), resolving major issues in both by combining:

• Nagel’s teleological evolution of consciousness
• Stapp’s consciousness-based quantum measurement

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What Happens After Materialism is Rejected?​

Rejecting materialism, according to 2PC, leads to a paradigm where consciousness is not just fundamental — it is ontologically generative. That is:

Consciousness brings about a new mode of being, one logically distinct from the pre-conscious quantum cosmos.

2PC goes further than both Nagel and Stapp by claiming that:

• The cosmos was in a Many-Worlds superposition until consciousness emerged.
• Consciousness, once evolved, retroactively collapsed the primordial wavefunction.
• This initiated a new phase of reality, shifting us from a superpositional ontology to a consciousness-collapsed one.

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Implications for Nagel’s Theory​

Nagel argues that the emergence of conscious organisms cannot be explained by materialistic Darwinism, and that something teleological must be at work.

2PC accepts this — but replaces Nagel’s speculative “teleological laws” with a far simpler and more elegant mechanism:

No special laws needed. The anthropic inevitability of psychegenesis in one branch of the MWI multiverse explains the emergence of conscious beings. The telos was structural, not imposed. [edit: I call this “The Psychetelic Principle”, because it is very similar to the Anthropic Principle]

Thus, 2PC fulfils Nagel’s request. It:

• explains how a new kind of existence came into being.
• rejects divine design without reverting to chance.
• naturalizes teleology within quantum cosmology.

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Implications for Stapp’s Theory​

Stapp claims that conscious observation collapses the wavefunction, but does not explain how that could happen before consciousness evolved.

2PC supplies the missing element:

• Nothing collapsed the wavefunction before minds existed.
• The early universe was in quantum superposition, evolving every possibility.
• The first collapse occurred with the emergence of mind, specifically during the Cambrian explosion, which marks the ontological phase shift in cosmic history.

This completes Stapp’s theory: the Participating Observer only becomes necessary after the emergence of a “subjective point of view,” exactly as Nagel says is required.

 

[Classical Motion]

I know nothing about consciousness, but I don’t think cosmology is connected to it.

I don’t know how to describe the problems with consciousness. But I think I do know the problem with cosmology.

And that problem is this. Light(EM radiation) is not a continuous alternating wave.

Light is an intermittent discreet duty cycle. A duty cycle wave. An interrupted field. It blinks.

Emitter motion shifts the ratio of that duty cycle, and detector motion shifts the rate of that duty cycle.

When we can measure this, cosmology will be re-written. With a new concept.

Duty cycle propagation. It’s only there, half of the time that it’s there.

Light is like a baled hayfield. The change in baler velocity, only changes the spaces between the bales. The space between emissions.

For the truck picking up the bales, only the rate of that bale/space ratio changes with truck velocity.

Hayseed physics.