Justification by an authority of others does not in itself constitute a proof. Nevertheless, intuitions of some of the greatest minds are of great interest.
Not in any particular order.
I took the liberty of adding [my comments] to pinpoint the exact meaning
- Erwin Schroedinger – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
- “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
- Sir James Jeans – physicist, astronomer, and mathematician
- “I am inclined to the idealistic theory that consciousness is fundamental, and that the material universe is derivative from consciousness, not consciousness from the material universe… The universe seems to me to be nearer to a great thought than to a great machine. It may well be, it seems to me, that each individual consciousness ought to be compared to a cell in a universal mind.”
- “There is a wide measure of agreement that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail [Cosmic] mind as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” The Mysterious Universe (New York: Macmillan, 1932), 186.
- “It looks more and more certain that the only way to explain the universe is to maintain that it exists in the mind of some eternal [Cosmic] spirit”
- Max Planck – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
- “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness”
- “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This [Cosmic] mind is the matrix of all matter.” Das Wesen der Materie, 1944
- George Wald – Nobel Prize Laureate in Biology
- “Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality—the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. What we recognize as the material universe, the universe of space and time and elementary particles and energies, is then an avatar, the materialization of primal mind. In that sense there is no waiting for consciousness to arise. It is there always”.
- “It has occurred to me lately—I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities—that both questions [the origin of consciousness and the origin of life from nonliving matter] might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality—the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create: science-, art-, and technology-making animals.” His address to the Quantum Biology Symposium titled Life And Mind In The Universe
- Ken Wilber – philosopher
- “From De Broglie’s assertion that mechanism demands a mysticism to Einstein’s spinozist pantheism, from Schrodinger’s vedanta idealism to Heisenberg’s platonic archetypes: these pioneering physicists were united in the belief that universe simply does not make sense and cannot satisfactorily be explained, without inclusion in some profound way, of consciousness itself. The eye of spirit.
- John Wheeler – theoretical physicist
- “I suggest that we may never understand this strange thing, the quantum, until we understand how [mathematical] information may underlie reality. Information may not be just what we ‘learn’ about the world. It may be what ‘makes’ the world”
- John 1:1:
- In the beginning was the [mathematical] Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Logos made flesh)
- Eugene Wigner – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
- When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena, through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again; it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness,”
- “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the [Cosmic] consciousness is the ultimate universal reality”
- Paul Dirac – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
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- “God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”
- Sir Arthur S. Eddington – astronomer, physicist
- “All through the physical world runs that unknown content, which must surely be the stuff of [Cosmic] consciousness. Here is a hint of aspects deep within the world of physics, and yet unattainable by the methods of physics. Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920)
- “The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.”
- Roger Penrose – mathematical physicist, mathematician
- “…the contemporary understanding of material is very different now from the way it used to be. If we consider what matter really is, we now understand it as much more of a mathematical thing…But I think that matter itself is now much more of a mental substance…” Journal of Consciousness Studies 1:24
- Freeman Dyson – theoretical physicist, mathematician
- “[Is consciousness] primary or an accidental consequence of something else? The prevailing view among biologists seems to be that the mind arose accidentally out of molecules of DNA or something. I find that very unlikely. It seems more reasonable to think that mind was a primary part of nature from the beginning and we are simply manifestations of it at the present stage of history.” Interview with Freeman Dyson in U.S.News and World Report, April 18, 1988, 72.
- I do not make any clear distinction between [consciousness] mind and God
- John von Neumann – mathematician, physicist
- “All real things are contents of [Cosmic] consciousness”
- Max Born – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
- “I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.”
- James Joule – physicist
- “It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed.”
- Srinivasa Ramanujam – one of the greatest mathematicians ever lived
- “An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a [mathematical] thought of God.”
- Keith Ward – philosopher
- “Is intelligent mind an ultimate and irreducible feature of reality? Indeed, is it the ultimate nature of reality? Or is mind and consciousness an unforeseen and unintended product of basically material processes of evolution? If you look at the history of philosophy, it soon becomes clear that almost all the great classical philosophers took the first of these views. Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel—they all argued that the ultimate reality, often hidden under the appearances of the material world or time and space, is [Cosmic] mind or spirit.”
- Max Tegmark – cosmologist
- “Math does a decent job to inspire wonder among physicists about why it works so well. The answer isn’t obvious, but I think I know why: It’s because reality is math”.
- Galileo Galilei – physicist, mathematician
- “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics”
- Albert Einstein – Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
- “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a [Cosmic Consciousness] spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe–a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which, we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
- “The more I study science the more I believe in God.”
- “I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His [mathematical] thoughts, the rest are details.”
- “If we think of the field as being removed, there is no ‘space’ which remains, since space does not have an independent existence”
- “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”
- “Hence it is clear that the space of physics is not, in the last analysis, anything given in nature or independent of human thought. It is a function of our conceptual scheme [mind]”
TheProblemOfConsciousness 