I came across a Noema article a little while ago that makes an interesting claim about consciousness and the soul. It argues that the soul does not belong to a separate physical realm or is composed of something separate from the rest of nature, and can, theoretically at least, be explained by physics. Specifically, it begins by stating that “consciousness is not separate from the physical world – our “soul” is of the same nature as our body and any other phenomenon of the world.”1 While this brought to mind the relationship of energy and matter, let’s see what the article says about how this might work.
The article begins with a subtle critique of our scientific understanding of the physical world and aims to motivate the reader towards remaining sympathetic towards old ideas about the soul. The author, Carlo Rovelli, states that although some believe that science can be used to produce explanations of “everything,” there are still many phenomena which we do not fully understand. “We can’t cure the flu or accurately predict the weather two weeks ahead.” Moreover, when we do understand certain physical laws, “we still cannot account for what they imply.” He appeals to a bicycle breaking down and how we go about restoring it, stating that we must ask a mechanic for help rather than a particle physicist. Though true, this comparison conflates science and engineering. We don’t ask scientists how to build bridges and engines, we ask them to provide us with regularities of the physical world expressed in mathematical terms which are then used by engineers to build and maintain devices and infrastructure.
From here, the article moves to a discussion of “our own brain and body” as an example that “we understand the least about” which I disagree with. We understand a lot about both, and while there are gaps in our understanding and more to learn about specific mechanisms, this framing has been exaggerated. Although consciousness in particular “is a very complicated natural phenomenon,” the fact that is poorly understood is not due to the complexity of consciousness but a failure within philosophy to properly identify and organize the explanatory components required to improve our understanding.
After a bit of background on the “hard problem of consciousness” and the “explanatory gap,” Rovelli briefly appeals to Spinoza’s ideas surrounding God and nature to motivate his position about souls and consciousness. “Our soul could be a phenomenon of the same basic nature as any other phenomenon in nature.” Though this is a reasonable position to propose, he doesn’t expand on this line of thinking, he just mentions Spinoza and moves on.
Rovelli’s next move is a good one despite failing to credit Kant with the idea. He reminds the reader that though Chalmers claims that science cannot explain the phenomenal aspects of experience, science is “entirely about experience.” Rather than representing the world objectively from an external perspective, it in fact examines the world as experienced by human observers. For example, we see a marble or a ball roll down an inclined plane and investigate why this is the case. Any so-called objectivity associated with the science is deduced through repeated experiments which indicate a regularity and predictability associated with our attempts to measure and represent observed phenomena. Objectivity is arrived at through descriptions of the natural world as they appear to us.
Further down, the author explicitly states this relationship. “We do not derive a first-person perspective from an objective third-person view. It is the opposite: Any account is perspectival because knowledge is always embodied.” This is a great way of articulating it and is more or less where Kant was coming from. The default “view” or understanding is subjective, and therefore, we must take this into consideration when thinking about and discussing natural phenomena. Kant didn’t stress the significance of embodiment in his writing, as this idea is a relatively recent addition to our understanding, but is very significant to include and I’m glad Rovelli includes it.
Ultimately, the author’s argument provided for why there is no “hard problem” or “explanatory gap” is not the strongest but it is present.
P1: “The world I access is the information I have about it, and I am a part of the world.”
P2: “Any account [of reality] is approximate, has blind spots and is realized within reality, so it is embodied in a part of that same reality. There are hinges between a representation and where is is embodied, and this may be a singular point in a representation, but it is not a metaphysical gap. It is not an explanatory gap.”
C: “There is no ‘hard problem’” and “our mental life can very well be of the same nature as any other phenomenon in the universe.”
So in a nutshell, because we appeal to subjectivity for objectivity/science, there is no gap and no “hard problem.” The origins of our understanding of reality is through a subjective point of view, and as such, is coupled to the universe. This eliminates the duality that underpins the metaphysical gap, explanatory gap, and the hard problem. I believe this is what Rovelli is trying to say. The argument would benefit from more explanation in P2 because it’s a bit vague, so I’m not exactly sure if I have this right.
Interestingly enough, he does mention Kant shortly after this argument by appealing to the idea of humans as “transcendental subjects.” Our experiences are “not obtained by addition to a physical state, but by subtraction from a complete physical account.” He states that mental processes articulate only the “salient characteristics” of their underlying physical processes, and its this fact which allows us to appeal to Kantian transcendence. It’s an interesting move that I would like him to expand upon. What does it mean to be a “transcendental subject?” Why does this matter? It sounds cool and spiritually-aligned but is there anything more we can learn from this line of thinking?
The article finishes with several claims that Rovelli believes are substantiated by the arguments made throughout. By ignoring or rejecting a dualistic perspective of the universe, which I’m fine with, we can then consider souls and minds as just another part of reality. Again, there are no apparent problems with this line of thinking. That said, he goes on to claim that the reason why this is compelling is because “hundreds of years of astonishing and unexpected success of the sciences … have convincingly shown that apparent metaphysical gaps are never such.” That “Earth is not metaphysically different from the heavens, living beings are not metaphysically different from inanimate matter, humans are not metaphysically different from the body.” Well yes, the last two examples are true, but what do you mean by “heavens?” Sure, we have discovered a deep continuity throughout the physical world, from the laws of physics to chemistry to biochemistry to evolutionary biology, physiology, and cognitive science, but his conclusions are still a bit hasty given the arguments presented. In general, I am sympathetic to Rovelli’s perspective but I think the reasons he uses to justify his position could benefit from a deeper analysis.
My hypothesis is that the answer we are looking for is energy. Clearly, consciousness is the result of physiological activity generated by the body, but an explanation for a soul requires more investigation. It makes sense that energy has something to do with it because of what we commonly think of ghosts, spirits, or some other supernatural phenomenon. Experiential testimonies will often refer to a kind of energy, movement, or electricity that can be felt, and apparitions must be caused by some kind of physical phenomenon. Furthermore, if certain devices or technologies can truly detect the presence of something other-worldly, it usually does this through some kind of physical, usually electronic, interface. We don’t necessarily need to discard this idea of “duality” wholesale, it can be explained by the relationship between energy and matter.
It seems as though there is a relationship or connection between souls and consciousness, but the question is what does this entail? Does consciousness persist after death, or does it dissolve or disperse once the body can no longer support it? While we can theorize and conjecture about answers to these questions, it ultimately comes down to empirical evidence to provide an explanation of souls and consciousness beyond the living being. Science may not explain everything at the moment, but it is a powerful tool for generating truthful explanations to our questions and ideas.
Works Cited
1 Carlo Rovelli, “There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness,’” Noema, May 7, 2026, https://www.noemamag.com/there-is-no-hard-problem-of-consciousness.