‘Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul.’
― Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Neuroscience typically answers the question ‘Is consciousness strictly tied to the brain?’ with an unequivocal yes.

The standard view holds that medical and neuroscientific research has shown consciousness to be a by-product of immensely complex biochemical and electrical activity among neurons. Trillions of synapses form neural networks, and from this tangled web of electrochemical signals, subjective experience supposedly emerges.

According to this narrative, consciousness evolved in different animal species because it serves a useful biological function: guiding the organism as it searches for food, mates, safety, and comfort. In this model, consciousness operates as the body’s navigational system.

A common supporting argument is: ‘No one has ever credibly observed consciousness without a functioning brain.’ Another is: ‘Conscious states change dramatically with even small alterations in the brain’s chemistry or electrical activity and therefore consciousness must be what the brain does.’

Thus, the mainstream conclusion: consciousness is an emergent property of brain activity. Without a brain – and without sensory input – consciousness cannot operate. It is portrayed as nothing more than awareness of internal and external stimuli, with no higher, cosmic, or transcendent dimension.

The Hidden Assumptions
This entire view rests on two, unexamined assumptions:

1. It assumes that the world outside consciousness exists unperceived.

It assumes an objective physical universe in which brains exist independently and that these brains somehow generate the conscious perception of those very brains.

But every piece of ‘objective’ scientific knowledge is accessed through subjective experience. Scientists identify patterns in nature and validate them through repeatable experiments, but no matter how successful this enterprise becomes, all observations are made through a subjective lens. The ‘objective world’ is always mediated by experience.

2. It assumes the physical universe is all there is

The second assumption is that the physical universe we inhabit is the only dimension that exists.

However, it is quite probable that spacetime is only one realm within the larger structure we call the universe. Based on various findings in physics as well as insights from spiritual practices, it seems increasingly plausible that we – and the objects around us – are multi-dimensional and exist at different energy frequencies.

Our minds might not be merely local phenomena confined to the here and now in spacetime, but may in fact operate from a dimension beyond spacetime altogether.

A Different Starting Point
An alternative perspective begins with what we know with absolute certainty:

We are not our brains – we are our experience.

Within experience, an object appears that we call the brain. Like all objects, it exists only when perceived.

From this standpoint, the brain is better understood as an interface: a filter that selects the sensory information necessary for survival and discards everything else as noise. It restricts our perception so that we are not overwhelmed by the full spectrum of whatever reality actually is, enabling us to function within this spacetime environment.

In this view, the brain, an appearance within experience, does not create consciousness. Instead, it shapes and limits the kinds of experience that can arise.

This experiential perspective makes no assumptions about an unperceived world. We are absolutely certain that we experience brains, but we cannot be certain that brains possess causal powers or exist outside experience at all.

The brain-based model assumes an external world generating consciousness; the experiential model simply starts with what is indubitably given.

In the end, the question is not whether the brain gives rise to consciousness, but whether anything other than consciousness ever rises at all.