It has been more than a year since I first became seriously interested in the question of consciousness. The person who sparked this interest was my all-time idol, Sir Demis Hassabis. While listening to his conversation with Lex Fridman, I began to feel that consciousness was not just an abstract philosophical puzzle, but one of the deepest questions a human being can ask: what is it “the experience”?
At first, I was not sure whether I would ever work on this topic seriously. Recently, however, I have decided that I will at least try. I do not believe that humanity is close to fully “cracking” consciousness. The problem is too deep, and there are still too many unknowns. But this does not mean we cannot make progress. We can still clarify the question, reject weak explanations, and build better conceptual bridges between philosophy, neuroscience, and metaphysics.
This paper argues that consciousness cannot be entirely reduced to physical processes, and yet it is not separable from the brain. Drawing on Chalmers' idea of information, I argue that the brain should be understood not as the producer of consciousness in a purely mechanical sense, nor as an irrelevant container for the soul but as an informational interface through which the phenomenal aspect of consciousness becomes embodied, structured and expressible in material life. First, I examine limits of radical dualists and reductive materialists, then argue for the brain’s role as mediator between our physical and phenomenal aspects of consciousness. However, I do not aim to solve the hard problem of consciousness. Rather this paper attempts to explore possible explanations for the “how” question.
I begin by examining the limitations of reductive materialism. Reductive materialism states that consciousness can be explained solely through the brain's neural mechanisms and physical processes. It assumes that the physical mechanisms of the brain give rise to conscious experience and that there is nothing beyond. However, as we look through Thomas Nagel’s classic “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” argument, we can see that there is something it is like to be a conscious being which cannot be reduced to physical processing. Nagel argues that if a being is conscious, then there is something it is like to be that being from its own point of view. This cannot be fully captured by a third-person physical description.
Generally, in science, reductionism helps us to explain phenomena objectively from the outside, but this does not work in the same way in the case of consciousness, as it is essentially something to be experienced internally. We might know every single physical fact about bats, their nervous system, and brain, but we would still not be able to experience bats’ internal perception of the world. A similar point could be seen in color perception: a person who was born blind might learn every single fact about red yet still lack the perception of red color as an experience which is perceived by non-blind human beings. Even if both of us know every single fact about “red” as a color, we cannot have each other’s experience of red color. If there is something it is like as described, then reductive materialism might be incomplete by itself as an explanation of consciousness. The biggest weakness of reductive materialism, I would say, is that it mistakes functional explanation for phenomenal explanation. Even after explaining every single physical mechanism of consciousness, we still lack an answer to the question of why there is an experience at all.
I would also suggest looking at Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness. As he argues, reductive materialism might explain the neural and physical mechanisms of consciousness. Through these mechanisms, we might be able to explain the functional aspects of consciousness. However, this still does not explain why there is experience at all, leaving an explanatory gap. There may be an explanation of functions, but functional explanation cannot be accepted as a full explanation of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness.
The limitation of reductive materialism is not that it fails to explain brain mechanisms. It can explain functions, physical processes, and neural mechanisms in powerful ways, yet this still leaves the main question unanswered: why is there an experience at all?
As I have covered the limitations of reductive materialism in detail, I can, now, examine the limitations of the opposite side - radical dualism. Radical dualists are the people who suggest that the soul or similar metaphysical conscious subject is the only existing basis of consciousness, independent of the brain and/or physical processes. In their view, the brain is merely a container, a secondary object to consciousness, and consciousness can almost be explained by the soul itself. Similar to reductive materialism, this view is also incomplete by itself.
One of the biggest weaknesses of this perspective is the explanatory gap for brain disease and its effect on human awareness. How does injury to the brain have an effect on our awareness, perception of ourselves and the world? For instance, when the right temporo-parietal junction (right TPJ) is injured or disrupted, it has been linked to out-of-body experiences / autoscopic phenomena. This disruption leads to failure of integration of visual, vestibular, and tactile signals into one stable sense of self. It might result in out-of-body experiences where the self is located outside the physical body, sometimes seeing the body from an elevated or external perspective. If it was assumed that the soul is the main basis for the existence of consciousness, then how would disruptions like right TPJ be explained? Why would they have an effect on human awareness and behavior?
While this does not lead us back to materialism, it raises an important question for radical dualists. If the brain can have an effect on our self-awareness and world perception, then it cannot be treated as a mere container of consciousness. Rather, I would argue, it plays an essential role in how our consciousness is embodied and experienced in ourselves. Therefore, I would propose that a non-physical subject embodies itself in the brain, and the brain is essential for how our consciousness becomes embodied, functions, and appears in material life.
We have seen the limitations of both sides. Reductive materialism tries to reduce consciousness into only physical reality, while radical dualists seem to assume the brain does not play a role at all in consciousness. I would suggest a third way: the integration of phenomenal and physical aspects to give embodied form to consciousness. In my perspective, the brain is not the source of consciousness, but it is not merely a container of it as well. Rather, the brain is essential for the embodiment of the non-physical subject. The brain is important for the embodied function and expression of consciousness in the physical body.
I suggest that the brain acts as a mediator, or to be more specific, an interface for the embodiment of a phenomenal subject and gives embodied form to consciousness. As we have covered in the previous sections, neither radical dualism nor reductive materialism completes the hard problem of consciousness. But we can make an argument for the third side: the integration of phenomenal and physical aspects through the brain.
Let’s define the word interface and what I mean by interface. Interface is when a phenomenal aspect of consciousness becomes accessible, structured, and expressed through the brain. This does not mean the brain is the source of consciousness, but it is the mediator that plays a key role in how consciousness appears as a phenomenal aspect in the physical body.
The brain plays a key role in three cognitive mechanisms of consciousness: access, structure, and expression. The brain's cognitive mechanisms such as perception, attention, sensory processing, and interoception make the world and the self available to consciousness. Then, memory, working memory, self-location, body schema, and similar cognitive mechanisms of the brain give form, organization, and continuity to consciousness in the self. Lastly, language, decision-making, and emotional expressions make consciousness expressed in the self and for the outer world.
How does this differ from functionalism? Functionalism argues that the mere existence of these mechanisms can be sufficient explanations of consciousness. I argue that these mechanisms of the brain just make the phenomenal aspect accessible, structured, and expressible through the physical brain.
None of the cognitive mechanisms mentioned are requirements for consciousness. People can lose their language ability and still be conscious; however, this changes the organization and structure of consciousness. Therefore, these mechanisms are not consciousness itself, but dimensions that shape the form consciousness takes.
If we assume the brain as an interface, then we need to ask what kind of medium allows the phenomenal and physical aspects to be mediated through the brain. It cannot simply be matter, because that brings us back to reductive materialism. It also cannot simply be the soul, because that brings us back to radical dualism. Therefore, I think David Chalmers’ idea of information and its dual physical and phenomenal nature fits well here. Information is structural: it can be physically realized in the brain while also corresponding to the structure of phenomenal experience. This makes it a strong fit for the interface model. I would differentiate myself from Chalmers in the sense that I do not think information itself is the fundamental non-physical subject. Rather, information is the medium through which the phenomenal subject becomes accessible, structured, and expressed through the brain.
There are still many questions unanswered. One of them is whether information is just structure or whether it actually participates in experience. We can also ask: if the brain is an interface, where exactly is the connection? How does phenomenal experience become reflected through the physical brain?
I think this is only the beginning of a series in which I explore this question in more detail. To conclude this paper, I would say that there is a third way between reductive materialism and radical dualism: the integration of the phenomenal and physical aspects of consciousness. The brain is not the source of consciousness itself, but neither is it irrelevant. Rather, it acts as an informational interface through which the phenomenal subject becomes embodied, structured, and expressible in material life.
Sources
- Thomas Nagel. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4, 1974, pp. 435-450.
- David J. Chalmers. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press, 1996.
- Georg Northoff and Felix Bermpohl. “Cortical Midline Structures and the Self”. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2004, pp. 102-107.
Seoul, Korea
21/05/2026