Christof Koch used a Portugal neuroscience symposium to argue in a new unpublished essay that consciousness is not produced by the brain but is a fundamental feature of reality.
The Allen Institute neuroscientist says the field has searched in the wrong place, writing that nothing in science explains how three pounds of matter can love, dream, fear or hope.
Koch urges researchers to revisit idealism rather than treat mind as a byproduct of brain activity, while stressing the idea must be turned into empirically testable hypotheses.
His push builds on papers dating back to 2016 and was partly shaped by a beach experience he said dissolved the boundary between himself and the world, though he does not present that episode as evidence.