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Picture this: You\u2019re watching a sunset on the beach during the summer. As the sun sinks down into the ocean, you watch the sky transform into a canvas of warm reds, deep oranges, and pastel violets. You\u2019re warm and happy as memories<\/a> of childhood vacations come flooding back to you.<\/p>\n Feeling what it\u2019s actually like to be alive in that moment, watching the sunset, is the essence of consciousness<\/a>\u2014otherwise known as the state of being awake, aware of your surroundings, and able to process experiences. One explanation<\/a> for consciousness likens your brain to a computer, and consciousness is the software running on it. Neurons fire, signals zip across synapses, and voil\u00e0, you experience the world. But what if consciousness is actually a fundamental building block of the universe<\/a> itself, similar to gravity or mass, rather than something the brain creates?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the crux of a recent presentation<\/a> from neuroscientist Christof Koch, PhD<\/a>, a meritorious investigator at the Allen Institute<\/a>, a multidisciplinary research organization based in Seattle\u2014and the theory could finally answer some of the cosmos\u2019 greatest mysteries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is whether\u2014and to what extent\u2014the entire physical world is a manifestation of something mental,\u201d Koch says in an interview.<\/p>\n He explains that everything we experience in the external world\u2014from seeing the sun set over the horizon or feeling \u2014is mediated by our conscious experience. To Koch, this implies that only conscious experience truly exists. Everything else, like the material world, is secondary, he says.<\/p>\n Koch explains how previous consciousness theories\u2014like physicalism\u2014fail to explain things like why people have love for their children, why people find Beethoven beautiful, and why we like the sunshine.<\/p>\n Physicalism<\/a> states every thought, emotion, and experience you have is due to underlying physical and neurobiological processes. But it doesn\u2019t account for the subjective aspect of them. For instance, physicalism explains how your brain registers a sunset, but it doesn\u2019t explain how you actually feel when you see the beautiful mix of colors in the sky.<\/p>\n For Nicco Reggente, PhD<\/a>\u2014research director of the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies<\/a>, a research lab based in Santa Monica, California\u2014\u201cconsciousness\u201d is the capacity for experience. Like Koch, Reggente also believes consciousness is a basic component of reality, rather than something produced solely by the brain.<\/p>\n He compares our working minds to a flying kite, where the kite is the brain and the wind is consciousness as a fundamental part of reality. \u201cThe kite has to be built from the right materials in the right configuration with the right tether, but its flight depends entirely on the wind,\u201d Reggente says.<\/p>\n A radio makes another good analogy, Reggente explains.<\/p>\n \u201c[The radio] doesn\u2019t produce the broadcast, it receives and transduces a signal that\u2019s already present,\u201d he says. \u201cBut unlike a radio, the brain isn\u2019t merely reproducing that signal with high fidelity\u2014it\u2019s interacting with it. And that interaction is what gives rise to our particular subjective experience.\u201d<\/p>\n So, if consciousness is indeed a fundamental part of the universe, what does this mean for us as people? For starters, it could answer a host of questions we\u2019ve otherwise viewed as impossible, according to Reggente.<\/p>\n He believes that the \u201chard problem of consciousness\u201d\u2014or how subjective experience could arise from physical matter\u2014is the obvious case.<\/p>\n \u201cIf consciousness is fundamental, the question dissolves: You no more need to explain how the mind emerges from matter than a physicist needs to explain how spacetime emerges from something more basic,\u201d Reggente says. \u201cWith this view, the \u2018hard problem\u2019 is not a problem at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The same logic applies to cosmological puzzles\u2014or other all-encompassing questions that seem impossible to answer\u2014like, \u201cWhat came before the Big Bang?\u201d or \u201cWhat is the universe expanding into?\u201d according to Reggente.<\/p>\n \u201cThey feel unanswerable because they\u2019re category errors, not because the answers are hidden,\u201d he says. \u201cInstead of asking how matter produces mind, we ask how mind structures itself into the appearance of matter. Many of our hardest problems may turn out to be artifacts of starting from the wrong place.\u201d<\/p>\n That same logic might apply to problems on a much more human level, too. Consciousness is already a consideration in medicine\u2014but if it\u2019s a fundamental part of reality, might that change how medical professionals treat patients, like those in comas or who have been clinically pronounced dead but were successfully resuscitated?<\/p>\n