Brandon Rickabaugh and J.P. Moreland have written a book that is both a refined rebuttal and a meticulous provocation. The Substance of Consciousness is not merely another defense of substance dualism; it is a contemporary rearticulation of an intuition that has long been buried—not refuted—under the weight of philosophical, ideological, and scientific prejudice. The thesis is clear: consciousness resists reduction, and the self, as the subject of experience, cannot be dissolved into brain functions or physical correlates without betraying the very nature of experience itself.
From the opening pages, the reader is confronted with striking admissions. Notable materialists, like William Lycan, openly confess the insufficiency of the arguments for materialism. Russellian monists like José Gusmão Rodrigues lament the anti-dualist assumptions rampant in philosophical literature. Figures like Chalmers and Searle suggest that the rejection of dualism has more to do with fear than with reason—a fear of sounding religious, a fear of reviving Descartes, a fear of the soul. In this sense, the book is not merely arguing with theories, but with a cultural atmosphere that has pathologized certain questions. Why do we reject dualism? Is it conviction, or is it philosophical habit?
Rickabaugh and Moreland do not fall back on easy arguments. They do not rescue dualism with nostalgia or mere appeals to intuition. Instead, they engage with precision, blending analytic philosophy, the history of metaphysics, cognitive science, and philosophical theology. By reminding us that dualism is not exclusive to theism—as shown by atheists like Popper, Huemer, and Fales—the authors dismantle the assumption that every defense of the soul is religious propaganda. At the same time, they demonstrate how theism provides a richer and more coherent framework for understanding what consciousness reveals about reality.
One of the book’s most notable contributions is its critique of the disappearance of the “self” from 20th-century analytic philosophy. As philosophers grew obsessed with mental states, functions, and qualia, they lost sight of the subject who experiences them. Rickabaugh and Moreland recover the self—not as a vague construct, but as the ontological center of consciousness. They do so with philosophical rigor and without surrendering to scientism or metaphysical panic. The self returns, and with it, the mystery of the human.
In an era where physicalism struggles to resolve the hard problem of consciousness—and theories like panpsychism and Russellian monism gain traction—the authors make their stance clear. This is not a syncretic compromise; it is a radical recovery. There are substances, and among them, at least one that thinks. The soul is not an illusion, not an epiphenomenon. It is the very condition of possibility for experience.
Far from being an outdated apology, The Substance of Consciousness is a philosophical manifesto for our time. It dares. It refuses to flatter intellectual trends. And it reminds us that some truths, though denied, remain—waiting to be thought again, with courage.
“Science, if pursued earnestly, leads to God.” —Edith Stein
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” —Albert Einstein
I. Introduction: The Prometheus of Modern Thought
Roger Penrose is one of the last giants of modern science. A brilliant mathematician, a visionary physicist, and a 2020 Nobel laureate for his work on black holes and gravitational singularities, he helped shape the intellectual framework of contemporary cosmology. Yet in his final years, this towering figure has begun to contradict himself: he questions the foundations of quantum mechanics, revises his own views on the origin of the universe, and proposes a quantum theory of consciousness while resisting the notion of a spiritual soul.
Not out of superficiality, but perhaps because he has reached the limits of the method. He senses that there is a deeper order, that the universe cannot be the result of blind chaos. But rather than taking the leap into metaphysics, he remains suspended at the threshold, where his truths begin to fracture into contradictions.
This essay is not an attack on Penrose, but a meditation on the intellectual tensions he embodies. It is a tribute to his honesty — and a critique of his reluctance to step into the metaphysical light.
II. Two Incomplete Maps: Micro and Macro Without a Bridge
Modern physics stands on two foundational theories:
General Relativity (Einstein, 1915): describes the universe at large scales — gravity, space-time curvature, black holes.
Quantum Mechanics: describes the behavior of matter at subatomic levels — uncertainty, superposition, entanglement.
Each works exquisitely within its domain. But they do not reconcile. The search for a theory of “quantum gravity” — a unified framework — remains elusive.
Penrose has long criticized the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, claiming that the collapse of the wavefunction must have an objective cause, not merely a probabilistic one. But he has not yet presented a full replacement theory, leaving the central chasm unresolved.
III. Consciousness: A Rift Science Cannot Cross
Penrose ventures even further when, with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, he introduces the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) theory — the idea that consciousness arises from quantum processes in the microtubules of the brain’s cytoskeleton.
Here arises a profound inconsistency:
He rejects quantum mechanics as currently formulated.
Yet he uses quantum mechanics to explain the most immaterial and mysterious phenomenon: human consciousness.
The theory, though imaginative, solves nothing. It introduces elements that are neither provable nor falsifiable, stepping outside the empirical method — without admitting the shift into metaphysics.
IV. What Physics Cannot Grasp: The Nature of the Soul
At the heart of the matter is this: consciousness is not matter. It cannot be weighed, duplicated, or scanned. It cannot be broken down into subcomponents or reduced to probabilities. Consciousness is the act by which the self becomes aware of itself, remembers, judges, chooses, and creates.
I use my brain, yes. But the thinker is not the brain. It is the soul using the brain as an instrument.
No MRI scan will ever locate a moral conviction. No particle accelerator will ever detect love, dignity, or hope. Because these belong not to the world of mass and motion, but to the invisible realm of spirit.
V. Logic Is Not Matter
Here lies the essential paradox: to do science, one must think. To think, one must use logic. And logic is not physical.
It has no mass or charge.
It is not made of particles.
It cannot be located in space.
Logic — like grammar, syntax, symbols, mathematics — is an invisible architecture that shapes all reason. It is used in every scientific formula, but it belongs to the realm of metaphysics.
How then can physics, which depends on logic, explain the very mind that generates logic?
It is like trying to weigh a metaphor. Or to photograph a decision. Or to isolate a dream with a microscope.
VI. The Legitimate Horizon of Science
Science can say, honestly:
“There exists a being — the human — that transcends the animal. Who uses the body but is not reducible to it. Who thinks, narrates, chooses, and loves.”
That is its noble threshold. But if science tries to explain this being as pure matter, it betrays itself. It uses material tools to examine what is not material.
VII. God and the Limits of Method
God cannot be proven scientifically. But He cannot be ruled out either. Because God is not a hypothesis among others. He is the foundation of being, the ultimate Reason, the Logos.
Einstein sensed this with humility:
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” “I want to know how God created this world. The rest is detail.”
He also referred to the low entropy at the origin of the universe as the “fingerprint of God” — a mysterious order too precise to be accidental.
Edith Stein, philosopher, mystic, and martyr, wrote:
“Science, if pursued earnestly, leads to God. And it has led many to the doorstep of faith.”
VIII. The Soul Cannot Be Split
What Penrose shows us, perhaps unintentionally, is the limit of naturalism. The point at which physics becomes myth — or worse, theology without God.
Because:
The soul cannot be split.
The will cannot be measured.
Consciousness cannot be engineered.
To explain the soul as if it were a particle is to reduce man to mechanism. And to explain freedom without spirit is to turn the human being into an illusion.
At some point, the scientist must remove the lab coat and enter barefoot into the sanctuary of mystery.
IX. Epilogue: When Thought Becomes Prayer
There is a kind of thought that ends not in formula, but in adoration.
Edith Stein knew it. Einstein suspected it. Even Penrose, in his own way, stands at its edge.
If the universe is intelligible, then there is a Logos. And if there is Logos, then consciousness is not an accident, but a summons.
And if there is a summons, there is Someone who calls.
And that Someone, though beyond proof, is more real than all proofs, for He is the very source of reason, love, and being.
“Real thinking does not end in formulae, but in contemplation.” —Simone Weil
📚 References
Penrose, Roger. The Emperor’s New Mind. Oxford University Press, 1989.
Penrose, Roger & Hameroff, Stuart. Consciousness in the Universe: Neuroscience, Quantum Space-Time Geometry and Orch-OR Theory. Journal of Cosmology, 2011.
Stein, Edith. The Science of the Cross. ICS Publications, 2002.
Einstein, Albert. The World As I See It. Philosophical Library, 1949.
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