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The spiritual core of the hard problem: consciousness as foundational, not emergent
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Frontiers in Psychology
Posted: July 26th, 2026
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
The so-called “hard problem of consciousness,” famously articulated by philosopher David , asks why and how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. Why does neural activity in the visual cortex generate the qualia of red, or neurochemical shifts involving oxytocin result in the felt sense of love? Despite significant advances in cognitive neuroscience, this explanatory gap remains unresolved. Transpersonal psychology, rooted in an expanded ontology that embraces the spiritual dimension of human life, offers a compelling framework for reimagining consciousness beyond mechanistic assumptions. This paper proposes that consciousness is not a byproduct of brain activity but rather ontologically fundamental. The filter theory of consciousness ... posits that the brain does not generate consciousness but functions as a filter, receiver, or reducing valve. In this analogy, just as a radio tunes into and selects specific frequencies from the broad spectrum of electromagnetic waves, the brain filters and constrains a vast, undifferentiated field of consciousness into a form adapted for practical survival and everyday functioning within the material world. Empirical research supports this filter model in several ways. Importantly, this model explains why non-ordinary states of consciousness, whether induced by trauma, meditation, psychedelics, or mystical absorption, often feel subjectively “more real” or authentic than ordinary waking consciousness.
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